Four Player Ruse
By Steampunk . Chuckster
Summary: When a fake blind date goes wrong, Sarah Walker, president of a major frozen food developer, finds her life inextricably entwined with Chuck Bartowski, one of her company's top food researchers. Contracts, bad behavior, idiocy, madcappery...and maybe even love follows. AU. Charah and Ellie/Devon.
A/N: Thanks again for the reviews and PMs. I appreciate them. Even the sort of strange ones.
Disclaimer: I don't own the TV show Chuck or its characters.
Chuck jumped when the back of his mom's hand slapped his shoulder. "Ow! Why?"
"Your mother was trying to talk to you, Charles. She even snapped her fingers by your ear and that didn't even work. You okay, pal?"
He blinked, taking his pocket knife out of his back pocket and opening the box that had just been delivered to them. "Yeah, all good. Lot on my mind. You know how it is."
"Like what?" his mom asked, scooting him out of the way so that she could lift a cellophane-wrapped group of their new Echo Pizzeria to-go boxes out and open them up to get the show on the road.
Everyone in this household did things too slowly for Mary Bartowski. Stirring the sauce? Too slow. Putting the cheese on the pizza? Too slow. Cleaning the floors? Too slow. She "ought to just do it all" herself. Every time.
"Just…work stuff."
That wasn't entirely a lie.
Ellie was currently on his "date" with the president of Ice Q Foods, Sarah Walker. Finally, the woman was getting the truth and he wouldn't have to be "Thomas Baxter" the madman anymore.
And she would stop pursuing him.
And maybe he'd stop having to see the company president at work so much.
He'd been so startled that morning when he turned from where he stood at the window looking out over the courtyard in front of his company building and saw none other than Sarah Walker standing right there. And then he'd dropped coffee all over her.
God damn it. So mortifying.
At least she wasn't mean about it. Nor did she seem all that upset. She'd even eased his mind a little and built up his confidence about his old projects and ideas. If only she'd been president back when he'd had his Carb-Lite Fried Dumpling Soup idea, it would've been approved. Clearly she hadn't had the power back then that she had now.
He found he was glad of that. So far, he wasn't upset with the new president at all.
Though she was…altogether too pretty.
And too…around. Considering he kept running into her. Ugh.
"Everything going okay at work?" Stephen piped up, handing Chuck a stack. "Just fold on the lines."
"I know how to build these boxes, Dad," he chuckled. Stephen shrugged defensively. "Everything's fine at work.""You sure, pal? You seem distracted."
"Just thinking up new ideas for what we can get onto convenience store shelves, that's all." He smiled maybe a bit too big.
What he was actually distracted by was Ellie had been in that "date" with Sarah Walker for two hours now and not a damn peep. No texts. No call. What the hell did she think she was doing not contacting him?
He produced a perfectly built takeout box and held it up. "Bam."
"Looks great! Thanks for helping, son."
"Mmm that logo looks so good on the white boxes. Told you the white box was better." His mom preened a little.
"I'll text Ellie a picture of it," Stephen said excitedly, "since she's the one who drew up that logo. Our little artiste, huh?"
Ellie had made their logo back when they were both sixteen. They hadn't had a logo when they'd opened; just a sign above the door. That changed when Ellie used her artistic and creative talents she was born with to make one. It was approved by the whole family and everything was printed, their logo stamped to that front window.
"I still think she should be a fashion designer," Mary muttered as Chuck held up the box and made an ugly face for his dad to take the picture.
"Charles. At least smile."
"You're sending it to Ellie, so no. Not smiling. She gets this face."
"Childish…"
"You kids are so weird…"
Chuck felt a buzz in his pocket as he started to build the next box. He scrambled for his phone, pulling it out to look at the text.
"It's all good. You don't have to worry anymore."
He pumped his fist in the air. "Yes!"
Both of his parents spun to look at him and he cleared his throat, putting his phone back in his pocket. "Um… sp-sports. Morgan, the new guy in our research group. He texted me a…sport score."
"You like sports now?" Stephen asked.
"Sport score…" Mary mumbled, confused.
"What-What is it, baseball? Baseball season?" Stephen turned to ask his wife as Chuck's mind wandered, his heart racing in the best way. Because it was over. "No, it's basketball. Basketball is going on."
"Football?"
"I think they overlap."
"Ah."
Chuck didn't have to worry about dating Ice Q Foods President Sarah Walker ever again, and his life was finally realigning itself to what it was before. Work, the pizzeria, video games, and drinking nights with his coworkers and/or Ellie. That was calm, it made him happy, he didn't want life to change.
And Sarah Walker gave him this unsettling life-changing feeling.
But it was over. And in spite of everything she did to get him caught up in this mess, now that she'd cut him loose again, he wanted to buy Ellie a drink.
He went back to building boxes, relief flooding him, a smile on his face.
}o{
Devon Woodcomb didn't know why he was shocked.
It made no sense to be shocked.
Of course the gorgeous, sweet woman he'd innocently spied on in the convenience store, who he'd tried to work up the courage to talk to afterwards and instead ended up being barreled into when she did a sudden about-face, was Eleanor Crawford, niece of Joyce Crawford, one of the meanest, scariest members of LA's CEO class.
It was like someone had written up a script, and that script had gotten dropped in the trash for bad formatting and cliches, and someone else found it, fixed the bad formatting, and submitted it anyway. It was too bad for Hollywood so they dropped it onto his head instead.
Was he crushed on the woman who'd fooled Sarah so cruelly? Yes.
He definitely was.
Meeting her again out in front of the restaurant had felt like kismet. He'd finally seen her again, when he'd gone back to that store so many times, an unnecessary amount of times, just to try to see her again. The guy who usually worked the counter, Larry (yes, he knew his name now), had started looking at him funny for buying one packet of candy, or one beer, or a box of whole grain cereal.
And now Sarah was going to have a dark vendetta against the woman he had a crush on. And Eleanor Crawford deserved the dark vendetta after hiring some asshole to pretend to be her now-ex to fool another woman on a blind date. And then letting it continue more than once?
Devon felt awful for Sarah, but she'd been acting strangely calm about it.
He knew her better than anyone, so he knew something was up. After the hit to her pride, the way she'd been stripped of control, something she hated more than anything, to be this calm?
Either she was going to blow up during a work meeting when nobody expected it, or she was planning something.
Sarah Walker was cunning. She didn't blow up when she could have a Plan A, B, and C to make things work more positively for herself instead.
Maybe the calm was happening because her cunning mind was hard at work.
It left him feeling unsettled…scared even. His best friend scared him sometimes. She really did.
He grabbed his keys from his pocket and opened up the door to his apartment, carrying in the large tote of groceries he'd purchased at his best friend's command.
Devon froze as the door swung shut behind him.
"Sarah…? What're you…?"
She stilled, the Swiffer mop in hand. She'd since rolled up the sleeves of her blouse, tied her hair up in a messy bun, put on a pair of his old slippers that were too big for her feet, and she was cleaning.
This was bad. Very bad.
And she'd forced him to go out and get ingredients for dinner. That was worse.
"Sarah, you don't have to do this…"
"You know very well that I do…have to do this, Dev." She looked around. "How long has it been since you dusted this place? I found dust bunnies the size of my head."
"I got busy."
"And you have clutter all over."
"It's how I organize things, I organize my stuff differently from you! Can you not touch all my stuff?"
"I only touched it to dust. It's all how you've organized it," she emphasized with an eye roll. Then she let the Swiffer lean against the wall and shuffled over. "You get all the stuff I asked for?"
"Yep, whole list is taken care of. Why are you stress cleaning and cooking?"
"Sh. Lemme wash my hands. You unload the groceries. In thirty minutes, we'll have a gourmet dinner. We'll talk after."
Devon put down the groceries and threw his hands up, losing his jacket, rolling up his own sleeves, and getting to work.
Sarah was absolutely correct on the dot. Thirty minutes later, they were sitting across from one another at the table, a delicious pasta dish with shrimp and a massive salad sitting in front of them, and a sliced baguette Sarah's instructed Devon to make into garlic bread.
It was his only contribution.
But God it was all so good.
He waited for Sarah to eat for at least a few minutes before he set his own silverware down, dabbed his lips with the paper napkin he'd had spread on his lap, and looked at her.
"So. You stress cleaned my apartment. And you stress cooked a gourmet Italian dish. Very delicious, I'll say."
"Thanks," she muttered, a thoughtful look on her face.
"Now what?"
Sarah sighed, putting her own silverware down and wiping her fingers from the garlic bread she'd just bitten into.
"Revenge."
"Aaaaand there it is."
"I was humiliated, bamboozled, defrauded, conned. And now I will get my revenge."
Devon nodded sagely. "I was waiting for this shoe to drop."
"No shoes are dropped. But heads are going to drop."
He winced at the imagery. "Okay Henry VIII. What's your plan for revenge?"
Sarah glared at him. "He didn't want revenge, he just wanted to bang whoever he felt like and have a son."
"Answer my question."
"I will make the one who lied to me feel my pain. You think you got off scot-free? Ooooh no no no," she said, clenching her jaw, a pleased sort of evil lighting her eyes.
Devon squirmed. "Sarah… It-It didn't cross your mind that maybe, erm, maybe Ms. Crawford was worried her then-boyfriend, her ex now, since they aren't together anymore, ahem, maybe she did it because she hates this whole blind date for your guardians' peace of mind bullshit just like you do."
Sarah cut her hand through the air. "I'm not worried about Eleanor Crawford. I'm talking about that Fake Thomas Baxter jerkwad. He told me I'm too pretty," she growled. "He called me weird. He was paid to sit there with me on those dates and he still said that crap to me? He will pay for his sins."
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Okay. How?"
The only response he got was a particularly terrifying crunch as she bit into a piece of shrimp, a smirk stretching across her face.
}o{
"What is all of this?" he chuckled, glancing down at his best friend as she gestured for him to climb through the revolving doors in front of her.
"It's a girls date! We're shoppiiiiiiiing!"
Chuck groaned. "What? Ellie, why?"
"I need some therapy, okay?"
"I mean, I've always said tha—Ouch! I'm joking! Why do you hit so hard?" He laughed anyway.
She sent him a teasing glare over her shoulder, leading him to the escalator. "Nothing heals better than getting to dress someone else. You get to be my someone else today."
"What if, hear me out, instead I go down to the arcade and when you're done dressing yourself you can gimme a call and we can carpool back home and I give you a high-five for picking out some great new outfits? Deal?" He held up his hand for a high five as they reached the third floor of the high-end shopping center.
"No deal. Dressing myself isn't as fun as dressing you. And I love dressing guys. It's fun and different, more of a challenge. Klein's Menswear, straight ahead."
"What? No! Are you seriously going to force me to change in and out of clothes like your own personal model?"
"I'm going to buy you expensive clothes and get you a proper hair styling, Chuck Bartowski. You're the only person I know who'd balk at that opportunity."
"Surely not. Plenty of people would see this experience as torture, not an opportunity."
"You're so dramatic. Get in there."
He whined the whole way in.
}o{
Chuck held up his phone to take another selfie, pursing his lips in a smolder and raising his eyebrow. "Not gonna lie, you made the hair look pretty cool this time."
"Your hairdresser, Miles, made the hair look pretty cool. I should've just paid for that the first few times instead of going it alone…"
He furrowed his brow. "What?"
"Hm? Nothing."
"Anyway, why go all out like this? I already forgave you."
"I told you, it's my therapy. And…"
Chuck lowered the phone and set it on the table where they were having a fancy midday lunch. "And? What does that mean?" Something was fishy and he felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. "Wait, why did you buy me this fancy, flamboyant suit and pay for my hair to get professionally trimmed and faux-hawkified? You even had them put a little eyeliner on me, which I was opposed to but it sort of does look…kind of cool, and—Hey, what is this, Ellie?"
She winced. "Okay so Sarah Walker is going to be here soon and I have to go but don't worry she just wants an apology that's it just say sorry and then you're free to go see you later." She grabbed her bag and hurried to her feet.
Chuck snapped, "WHAT!" and grabbed her wrist. "Ellie! Ellie, what are you doing to me?!"
"I'm sorry I didn't have a choice she cornered me and blackmailed me and said if I didn't put you in front of her she'd tell our whole social circle that I helped hire an agency guy to pretend to be my boyfriend on a blind date to fool somebody and I'll be a fucking pariah Chuck!"
"Ellie! What the hell?! So I get thrown under the bus instead?!"
"No! Just apologize like she wants and then it's over!"
"Why is everyone insisting things are over and then something else awful crashes in right after?" he hissed savagely, shaking her wrist in his tight grip. He was so pissed off. He couldn't believe this. "I hate you!"
"Love you! Good luck! You've got this!"
"I really—Wow, you're just gonna run away. Oh my God."
She scampered away like a cockroach when the light was turned on.
No.
He wasn't playing this game.
He stood up from the table and quickly fumbled his phone out of his pocket. Only, just as he spun to head for the door, he saw Sarah Walker push her way into the restaurant, her hair pulled back into a tight business bun (he was in deep shit) and a black pencil skirt, blouse, and matching blazer adorned her body, her legs long and bare and perfect ending in tall spike heels. He was so fucked.
There was nowhere to go.
He put his phone back in his pocket, then reached into the inner pocket of his jacket to grab his wallet. He would put money down to pay the bill, apologize to her, and scurry off with his tail between his legs. It wouldn't be good for his pride, but it'd be much better for his physical health. This woman looked like a carnivore beast headed for its prey.
But then his fingers slipped on the wallet and it crashed into the floor, some of its contents cascading a few feet away. "Shit, really?" Now he'd made a commotion and she saw him and was headed his way… SHE'D SEEN HER PREY.
He was dead meat.
}o{
He was like a character out of a kid cartoon. When he saw her coming, his eyes went massive, he dropped his wallet like it had slipped from his fingers as they went limp. When it crashed into the floor, the contents spilled out, a few business cards landing in her path.
She stooped to delicately pick it off the floor, meeting his eye as he looked up from scrambling to grab the contents of his wallet.
"So this is just how you dress all the time, is it? …Fake Thomas Baxter…"
He went pale. "Uh…"
Sarah turned the card over as she straightened to her full height.
ECHO PIZZERIA. Pizza, sizzling shrimp, and all the beer you can drink!
The address was beneath, along with a phone number, a website address, and an email. At the bottom, it said "We cater for events!"
As he stood up, putting his wallet back, looking a lot less confident this time than he had the last few times she'd met him, Sarah gestured to the table. For the first time since that first blind date, he hastened around the table to hold her chair for her. She sent him a flat look for it, he winced, and she sat down, scooting in as he rushed over to his own chair.
She waited for him to sit before she flashed the business card at him. "Do you work here?"
"Oh. Um…I-I don't…um…"
Raising her eyebrows, she took her cell phone out. "I'll just call them and ask…"
"No, no! You don't…have to do that. My family runs it. We run it and live in the space above. It's-It's not…I only help out some evenings and weekends if there are large groups. That's all."
Sarah pursed her lips, looking down at the address again. Echo Pizzeria. She imagined it was in Echo Park, she recognized the street too. And he'd just told her he lived with his family above the pizzeria. "You have a wife? Kids?"
"God no. My parents." He winced again. "They need the help and it's…" He stopped and sighed. "Never mind, I'm just gonna leave it there."
She slipped the card in her pocket for later. "How much?"
"Well, for a large pizza, it's $19.99. Pretty cheap because the actual pie is huge! If you want the sizzling shrimp, it depends on which size you—"
"Not the pizza!" she interrupted, having to take a deep breath to keep her frustration from showing too much. She didn't want him to see just how badly he'd affected her with this ruse. "How much did Eleanor Crawford and Thomas Baxter pay you to con me?"
"It-It wasn't a con, really. Because I didn't steal from you. I'd never do that. I feel like it's more a con if I…take something… You look very mad."
"I am mad, as you can imagine. So just answer my question. Please," she finished through gritted teeth.
"Ahem. Right." He looked to be thinking hard. "Um…the typical VX24 is around $500 to $600 dollars, but if you get your hands on a VX24 Plus it's more like $800. Those are super rare and impossible to find. They've only made like a handful of them. Worst game console launch ever, totally underestimated the…demand. You look exceptionally mad now…"
She couldn't believe this. She couldn't fucking believe this. He wasn't serious…
Sarah grabbed onto the edge of the table and leaned over it to hiss, "You lied to me like this for a video game!"
His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. "N-Not just one game, it's the…console itself. What you…play the game on. It's a headset for VR… It sounds super cheap but-but they're very hard to find right now. Worse than trying to get Comic-Con tickets. I've found some online and I try to jump on it quick to buy, and within moments, they're gone. I'm sitting there just staring at a wheel of death, and then a message pops up that they're sold out. Thanks for tryiiing! Ugh…"
She took another deep breath before she killed this admittedly handsome but weird jerk. "You really did all this for some hard-to-get VR headset game thing. I've never been this humiliated in my life."
"I'm sorry," he burst out. "I'm really so sorry. I told them I didn't want to do this. That it wasn't something I felt comfortable doing to another human being. I told them it was mean. And I told Thom—M-Mr. Baxter. I told him that if he wanted to scare off a blind date, he could do it himself." He curled his lip then. "Honestly, all he'd have to do is open his dipshit mouth and say somethin' and you would've been outta there."
Sarah let out a quiet choking sound, then twisted her mouth to the side to keep too much amusement from showing. Clearly the man Thomas Baxter hired hadn't liked him all that much. She could see there was no love lost there.
She merely crossed her arms and kept staring at him.
He squirmed. "B-But I know that…isn't going to make this right. Me sitting here…apologizing. A mere sorry won't fix what was done to you. I know that."
Sarah had planned this plot of revenge, mapped it out for herself with various routes all covered, in case he really was good at keeping her on her toes and it wasn't part of the playacting as Thomas Baxter.
And still, she felt something pulling her towards another path. "It won't," she said simply.
"Right. Ahem." He nervously scratched behind his ear, his movements jerky. "I can't give you anything, um, material wise—I don't have the money you have and you can probably get whatever I might give you yourself. Um, but I'm good at IT stuff. If you ever have a laptop or phone or something that needs fixing. Or maybe if you ever need help with anything, I am…a very helpful kinda guy. You just lemme know, I'll be there. Heh."
She tilted her head and pursed her lips thoughtfully. And then she pulled her phone out, scrolling through. "I'm deleting Thomas Baxter from my freaking phone. And I had you in here as Thomas Baxter Phone Number 2…" She glared at him pointedly and he winced. "So what's your actual name? I'll change it."
"…What?"
"You said sorry isn't enough and I agree. It isn't. So I'm keeping your phone number in my phone, only under your actual name this time. And whenever I call you, you're gonna answer. …Right?"
He blinked. "Oh. Um…"
"Name."
Fake Thomas Baxter was too much of a mouthful, even for her brain. But why was he hesitating?
"Look, I already know where your family's pizzeria is and where you live. If you don't want to give me your name, I can just find out myse—"
"Drake." He squirmed in his chair and looked down at his lap. "N-Nathan. Drake. Nathan Drake. Yeah."
He seemed to almost be holding his breath as she typed it into her phone. "Nathan Drake," she repeated as she did so. "I'd say nice to meet you, but I'm still pissed so I won't."
"I get that," he mumbled.
"I mean it, Mr. Drake. When I call, you answer. If I call three times…" She held up three fingers. "…and you don't answer, I'll come and find you. Not sure if you're gonna want that."
"No, tha-that's okay. I will answer." He nodded vigorously.
"Good."
She grabbed her purse then and surged to her feet. "We'll see each other again. But in the meantime, try not to con anyone else, hm?"
"W-Wait. But I-I have a job," he called out. She turned on her heel to face him. "What if I can't answer because I'm at work?"
Sarah raised an eyebrow. "So this agency acting gig isn't paying the bills, is it? You work somewhere?"
"Yeah."
"Where?"
"It's…a place. A company. And I might not be able to answer every time you call, depending on…the job."
"I'll keep that in mind," she said, noticing that he didn't give her any real details about where he worked.
She'd let him have that for now. She already knew where he lived and about his family's business.
She strode away from him with determination. He had no idea what was coming.
Poor sap.
}o{
Ellie kept her hands over her mouth, wincing behind them.
When she lowered them, she said, "Okay, so I owe you a big vacation. I'll pay for a weekend in the mountains for ya! How's that?"
He glared hard.
"No? Not the mountains?"
"How about a month in Taipei? Or literally anywhere that's on the opposite side of the world? Because that's the only way I'll ever get out of this without legit dying." He groaned and buried his head in his hands.
"You won't die, Chuck."
"I'm gonna get fired." He lifted his head. "She knows about the pizzeria, about the fact that I live above it."
Ellie gasped. "What?! How'd she find out about that?!"
He slowly slid off of the bed onto the floor of his bedroom, dramatically lying prone, unmoving, his face turned away from his former best friend. He would be sending her a cease and desist letter from his lawyer ASAP. After this conversation, in fact.
"I had our Echo Pizzeria business cards in my wallet because someone at work wanted a good pizza place for their kid's bar mitzvah and I dropped my wallet in front of Sarah and it all spilled out. She picked up the card from the floor and saw all of it right there. And I had no choice but to tell her it was my family's. Luckily dad and mom don't have their names on there, ugh."
"Jesus Christ, how the hell do you drop your wallet and have things spill out of it in front of her of all people? You've got no luck."
"I've also got a terrible best friend who threw me under the bus. You brat." She winced and shrugged like she conceded the point. "You fucking left me in there to rot after buying me that ridiculous wardrobe and having them do my hair and eye makeup. I'm never forgiving you if I get fired."
"At least you didn't give her a real name!"
"Right. It's a guy from a video game. I couldn't think of anything else."
"Oh God did you give her the name Nathan Drake? Are you serious?"
"How'd you know?" He gaped at her.
"Because you have a weird man crush on him and you want to be him in your next life. Of course that's the name you'd pick. I knew it the second you mentioned it was from a video game." She huffed. "Chuck, you have to block her number."
"She said she'd find me. I have to answer when she calls."
"Well keep avoiding her at work then."
"Um, easier said than done! I've been trying and it's like fate is slamming us together anyways!"
Ellie made a thoughtful face and hummed. "Maybe fate is trying to tell you something…"
"W-What is that supposed to mean? You know what? I'm done, I've had it. You die tonight." And he crawled up to his knees in front of where she sat on his floor and made like he was going to strangle her, but the moment his fingers touched her neck, the bedroom door burst open and there stood Mary Bartowski, completely aghast.
"Charles Bartowski! What are you doing to poor Ellie?!"
He pulled his hands back quickly. "First of all, I was joking."
"I saw shades of American Psycho in your eyes, Chuck!" Ellie gasped, crawling towards his mom and even clinging to her leg with both arms.
"Oh my Godddd pleeeease," he groaned.
"You are lucky you have a friend like Ellie, Chuck. And you treat her like this?"
"No, please, Mrs. B, it wasn't Chuck's fault. It was all my fault," she said dramatically, climbing to her feet and hugging Mary tight, still taking refuge with his mom.
Chuck rolled his eyes and crawled to his feet. "You are such a player."
"Stop with the nonsense, Chuck, and act like an adult," Mary said. "You can't be going around acting like this. And after everything Ellie's done for you, and for us, all of us."
"Mom, you have no idea what the situation is here. If you knew, you'd—"
"Don't fight! Please don't fight!" Ellie exclaimed dramatically. "I don't like it when you two fight, especially if it's about meee."
Chuck met his mom's gaze with a flat look and she chuckled, wrapping an arm around Ellie, giving her a squeeze. Mary spoke up in a loving drawl, "You're both such doofuses. Can't believe my children act this way. I'm blaming Stephen, because I certainly didn't raise you two to be like this."
Then she let go of Ellie and put her hands on their heads, ruffling their hair. Ellie looked more miffed about it than he did, her hair sticking up everywhere after.
"Be good to each other, hm? No matter what happened, no matter what this bickering is about. You're both lucky you have each other."
"I think we're lucky we have you, Mrs. B," Ellie gushed as she smoothed her hand down her hair to try to fix it.
"That is true," his mom agreed, smiling and leaving them both behind.
His best friend turned to give him a sparkling green-eyed look. "What d'ya say we bury the hatchet, huh?"
"Nope." He started leaving the same way his mom had.
"What? But Mrs. B said—"
"Oh I don't care what she said. You have so much to atone for," he said over his shoulder as he reached the door.
Ellie whined.
"And that's definitely not gonna work."
}o{
She couldn't stand it anymore.
The simpering female character, hanging all over the male character, asking him for forgiveness because she'd misjudged him. It felt so forced, so unrealistic. Or maybe it was realistic and that's what pissed her off. He wasn't freaking faultless. She'd thought certain things of him because he'd acted like a douchebag.
But in spite of wondering what happened at the end, she was done putting herself through this. And she turned off the TV altogether.
"Rom-coms," she grumbled to herself, rolling her eyes.
She pulled her wrist up to look at her watch. It was eleven-thirty. She had nothing in her schedule tomorrow and intended to just lock herself in her office to get work done finally, without the interruption of meetings or anything else. She should get sleep anyways. On the nights she could, she should at least try.
But then she glanced down at her phone sitting on the couch cushion next to her. And she picked it up, pulling her contacts up and staring at one in particular.
Nathan Drake. Who did he think he was with a ridiculous name like that? Some action star? Not that guy. In his strange suits that fit his tall, lean body nicely, that his shoulders filled out really nicely. And his hairstyle. What was that? Who did curly faux hawks these days? Who did faux hawks at all? Did he think he was a pro wrestler or something? And the eye makeup? Was he a movie pirate?
Come to think of it, the way he dressed and his build did look a bit like a pirate from some fantasy movie or something, like a pirate whose ship flew in the air rather than sailed on the sea.
How would he look with a hook instead of a hand? Or a peg leg?
She snorted to herself and shook her head.
Why was she having nice, cute thoughts of Nathan Drake when he was a scheming, lying, no-good con artist? She should be plotting revenge, not thinking about his cute nose or how long his eyelashes were.
Or the fact that he was weird, that he'd clearly done some of that stuff during their dates with the purpose of scare her off, but that she felt something real shining through, his real self that he couldn't contain try as he might. Especially looking back with hindsight. For someone who was acting, it seemed he was kind of bad at it. How much of the real Nathan Drake had she met so far? She thought maybe she'd seen more than he meant for her to see.
Or maybe she was just making assumptions.
He fascinated her and she sort of despised him for what he'd done, whether it was for a stupid video game apparatus thing or not. That still freaking stung a lot.
She wasn't sure why she wasn't more pissed at that Eleanor Crawford woman. She couldn't believe she'd conspired like that, bought some jerk at an agency. What, there was no woman code anymore? Sisters weren't looking out for each other anymore?
That said, Thomas Baxter really must be some kind of massive asshole. Because in spite of him being the lynchpin in all of this, he hadn't showed his fucking face. No email, no text, no call to apologize. The fucker just disappeared. She'd had Devon look into it. Apparently he left the state for "business", the coward. And he let his ex-girlfriend shoulder this blame and burden.
Maybe she didn't hate Eleanor Crawford because in a strange way, her dishonest ruse she'd concocted had really helped Sarah dodge the bullet that was the real Thomas Baxter. Considering everything she'd discovered about the guy, she'd take this fake Thomas Baxter, this Nathan Drake guy, ten times out of ten over the real thing.
In spite of what she'd said after that first date with Fake Baxter, she really didn't want to get saddled with someone who cheated. Whether it was a love marriage or not. It would still be deeply humiliating if her husband was sleeping around and everyone knew.
She'd acted out, and she'd had reckless ideas.
But she was pretty sure this Nathan Drake guy had only said all of that about womanizing to freak her out. Though she imagined a guy like him could probably pull if he really wanted to.
And maybe he did.
And now she was miffed. And she was even more miffed that she was miffed.
She hit the call button on the phone before she really even knew what she was doing.
}o{
Who was buzzing his phone right now? Damn it. Really?
He groaned into his pillow he'd turned over to bury his face in at some point in the last few minutes since he'd fallen asleep.
It couldn't be more than a few minutes because that was how his stupid life worked. He couldn't just sleep. No, no. Someone had to freaking call him and wake him up.
If it was Ellie, he might actually let her have it.
All jokes aside.
He reached out in the dark, rolling onto his back as he unplugged his phone and swiped at it blindly to answer.
"'Lo?"
"Ah, Mr. Nathan Drake."
His half-sleeping brain was not functioning properly, deeply confused about why someone was mumbling a video game character's name in his ear. "Nathan Drake? I'm not—" Suddenly, it all snapped into place and he pushed himself onto his elbows, his eyes open wide. "Oh. Oh, Ms. Walker. Sarah Walker. Uh… Y-Yes, it's me. N-Nathan…erm…Drake. Yeah."
"Good."
"G-Good? W—Erm, why-why you calling me right now?"
"I called to make sure you didn't block my number. I called to make sure you'd answer like I told you to. That's all."
She almost chirped that last part, and then there was nothing.
"H-Hello?" he tried, but he knew she'd hung up on him.
He looked at his phone screen to check the time.
What the hell?
"It's almost midnight. What the hell? Is she a sociopath?" he exclaimed to himself. "Jesus Christ! Who calls someone they don't know at this hour when it isn't an emergency! Just to check if I—God, she'd nuts!" He plugged his phone back in. "She's truly just nuts. Who is this girl?"
And he plopped back into his pillow, staring in utter incredulity at his ceiling.
"What the hell?"
}o{
Chuck dragged himself into his office the next morning, landing heavily in his chair and shrugging his messenger bag off to fall to the floor at his feet. He just barely moved his keyboard in time for his forehead to land on the desk.
And he stayed that way for a bit, lamenting the trajectory of his life. How did this happen to him? Maybe if he'd never been nice to Ellie in school…
She wouldn't have become a huge part of his life, part of his family, and she wouldn't have dragged him into this damn mess.
He was rethinking all of his choices in life up until now.
Which wasn't anything new, since he'd done that for pretty much all of the night before instead of sleeping, thanks to the late night, rude phone call from his new tormentor, President Walker of Ice Q Foods.
I called to make sure you didn't block my number.
She had screws loose, seriously.
"Why's he look like that?"
"Chuck? Hey, uh…Chuck? Mr. Bartowski? You okay, buddy?"
Chuck slowly lifted his head, craning it to narrow his eyes at his fellow Group 1 researchers.
He blinked at Morgan who sat at the cubicle across from his. He was peeking over the unnecessary flimsy wall that separated their desks, concern etched over his bearded face.
"Fine."
"You don't look or sound fine," Roan Montgomery, her superior in the group helpfully added. He looked unbothered, more curious than anything.
"I didn't get much sleep. That's all." Like…none. At all.
"Why?" Roan asked. "Seeing a girl?" He leapt up to his feet and dashed on his tiptoes around the miffed Captain of the group's desk, tapping Diane's shoulder as he went. She snapped out a "Don't touch me" and shoved at his hand. All which he ignored.
Then he stooped low next to Chuck, his hands on his shoulders. "My boy, I could teach you wonders."
"No. No thank you."
"The wonders of womanhood."
"I'm good. But you phrased that really interestingly."
Morgan made a choking sound. "Uh, Mr. Montgomery? Boss? You know things about womanhood? I mean, uh, being a woman?"
"That isn't what I mean. You're basically half a step up from a damn intern, Beard, so you be careful what games you play," Roan threatened the much younger man.
Diane looked up at him and took off her glasses very slowly. "Are you threatening one of my people?"
Roan stood up straight, clearing his throat. "N-No. Of course not, Di—Captain Beckman. Of course not."
"Go sit your ass back in your chair and work."
"Yes, ma'am. Going." He moved to head back to where he'd sprang up from a minute earlier but paused. "But first can I give our boy Bartowski some advice on getting a girl to—"
"No," she snapped. "Sit down. None of us need your advice. And we don't need our sweet, impressionable Mr. Bartowski to be an ugly wolf like you. Go."
Roan both narrowed his eyes and pouted, but he followed orders because he knew which side his bread was buttered on. And he slumped into his chair, sulking.
It was about fifteen minutes later when something thunked into Chuck's forehead and fluttered onto his keyboard he was typing up a recipe on. It was an Italian meatball dish with a pomegranate sauce that you could warm separately. The whole meal would only take ten minutes total to prep and it was healthy and would keep longer than the average meal from a frozen food section in a corporate grocery store.
Chuck stared down at the paper airplane. There was writing on it. He looked up to see Roan grinning lecherously at him from over the barriers between all of their desks. The grey-haired man winked.
Jesus Christ, did he even want to know?
His curiosity getting the better of him, he unfolded the airplane and looked at the words Roan had written.
Chuck.
First find someplace with a hot tub, preferably one with jets. Make sure she sits in front of the jet and give her a good shoulder massage at the same time. She'll be putty in your hands and she'll slip right between the sheets for you. Trust me. I've done it 1000s of times.
Roan.
Chuck swallowed the gross-tasting lump at the top of his throat and surged to his feet. He walked around the other desks towards the door that led to the hallway.
"Mr. Bartowski? Where are you going?" Diane asked.
He turned back and held up the note Roan wrote.
"To the bathroom… to flush this advice I got from Mr. Montgomery down the toilet and into the sewers where it belongs."
A/N: Chaos.
Thanks for reading!
-SC