15 step, 3/? (chuck, chuck/sarah, r)
Mar. 3rd, 2009 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndnickersonTitle: 15 Step
Part: 3. morning bell
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ndnickerson
Pairing/Characters: Chuck/Sarah
Series: Chuck
Word Count: 1015
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Chuck suggests an evening of cover maintenance.
Spoilers: General through mid-Season 2.
Warnings: Language.
What bothers him most is that she walks into the Buy More five hours into his shift, looking like nothing's happened, although she hasn't answered any of his calls. Casey slaps the spatula into Zach's hand and stalks toward the door, ready for their meeting, but Chuck's on the phone setting up a repair appointment, so Sarah waits near the door, her arms crossed over her chest, her mouth set.
"Meeting?"
She nods, tossing her hair as she falls into step beside him. "Something pretty big. Important."
Chuck shoves his hands into his pockets. "Look, Sarah, I... I'm sorry about what happened."
She doesn't acknowledge him at first, just keeps walking. "Nothing happened," she replies, her voice remarkably close to normal, giving that slight shake of her head.
"Come on," he says, frustrated and just a little scared, and she sighs and turns to him without looking at him, that strange distant expression in her eyes, the one she wears when she's about to hurt him.
"I've been... unclear." She nods, very firmly. "So I'll try to make this clear. That cannot happen again. Will not happen again. Understood?"
He nods, jerkily, and she spins on her heel, walking faster than before. "It's just, I... well, you know how much we drank," he trails off, but she didn't drink, she faked her own screwdrivers and played the affectionate girlfriend all too well. Played. And no excuse for his behavior is enough.
"So don't drink," she shoots back, letting him into the Castle.
--
The mission is relatively simple, for them. Huge meeting of prospective clients at a trade show, used as a cover for the terrorist information trade. He's Charles Carmichael, a newcomer to the game, with a new transmission device to demonstrate. Casey and Sarah are part of his team.
He's stupidly disappointed that she isn't going as his wife.
They carpool to Sarah's place at four in the morning, while Chuck is draining his second cup of coffee, stifling yawns every thirty seconds. As he weaves his way through the early traffic on the freeway, Casey glances over at Chuck and grunts.
"You need to put her out of your head, Bartowski."
"What?" Chuck snaps back, irritable. He wasn't able to sleep for remembering the expression on Sarah's face and his worries over the mission. "Who?"
Casey tugs his cap's bill, checking his mirrors. "You aren't Bryce, that's for damn sure," he gives Chuck a sideways glance and a derisive snort, "and he was enough trouble, and an agent to boot. You? Are an assignment. She compromises herself with you and I'm the one you'll be introducing to the family and taking as a date to your sister's wedding."
Chuck can't help it; his lip curls, a little. "What—Did she tell you—"
"She didn't have to. And you can't get it through your head that a cover identity stops as soon as the cameras are off."
"And you're so good at that? After Carina handcuffed you to the bed?"
Casey grunts again. "Agent, remember?"
Chuck sighs and drains the rest of his cooling coffee, digging his short nails into the styrofoam. "So I'm just supposed to turn it off when we're alone."
"What you do," Casey sighs, sounding incredibly put-upon, "is tell yourself that you're that guy, that you're Charles Carmichael, in front of other people, when you're with her. Don't act surprised when she kisses you. Don't get all moon-eyed when she walks up to the Nerd desk. She's yours."
"And then?"
"And then, when the lights go down, remember that you're an intelligence asset and she and I are the only ones holding back what's coming to get you." Casey switches lanes. "So don't go getting all handsy and making her request reassignment."
"So if I were Bryce, we wouldn't be having this conversation," Chuck says slowly.
"If you were Bryce she would've fucked you twelve ways from Sunday instead."
That manages to put him in a worse mood, so he climbs into the back and pretends to sleep on the way to the airport, and every time she speaks he can't help but imagine. Sarah and Bryce on the dance floor. At perfect ease. Equal in every way.
She says the words "tactical impossibility" and he thinks about how, while Bryce was getting him kicked out of Stanford, Sarah was probably training, learning how to distract a man with the flutter of her eyelashes while she slipped a blade from the band at her ankle. But there was a time, before, when she wasn't just Sarah, when she was Jenny Burton, the awkward high school student, the socially awkward girl who would have to learn to tango without giggling and flirt without blushing. He thinks about that surveillance video, Bryce pleading that no matter what Chuck's scores were, he wasn't cut out for this life, that it would break his heart.
He never really felt jealous of their life and now he just pities her, that the slick persona is just another mask. No matter what Casey's advice might be, at least when Chuck goes home at night he doesn't have to remember who he is, who he's supposed to be. He's only Chuck.
"Ready?" Casey doesn't even wait for a reply before he slams the door, leaving Chuck still curled up in the backseat. Chuck sighs and grabs his bag, following Sarah's hair, fluttering loose and fluorescent orange in the sodium lights.
There was a time when she was like me.
For not the first time he wishes that he could will the flashes, that they didn't depend on a specific inflection or a piece of jewelry, that the instant he saw Jill it could have gone off like red flags. He's able to place two men on their flight as white-collar embezzlers, their stewardess as a former asset, but he can't pull up Sarah's file, can't predict where Fulcrum will strike next, can't make this bearable for either of them.
He pulls the pillow over his face and can't stop listening to her silence.
Part: 3. morning bell
Author:
ndnickersonPairing/Characters: Chuck/Sarah
Series: Chuck
Word Count: 1015
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Chuck suggests an evening of cover maintenance.
Spoilers: General through mid-Season 2.
Warnings: Language.
What bothers him most is that she walks into the Buy More five hours into his shift, looking like nothing's happened, although she hasn't answered any of his calls. Casey slaps the spatula into Zach's hand and stalks toward the door, ready for their meeting, but Chuck's on the phone setting up a repair appointment, so Sarah waits near the door, her arms crossed over her chest, her mouth set.
"Meeting?"
She nods, tossing her hair as she falls into step beside him. "Something pretty big. Important."
Chuck shoves his hands into his pockets. "Look, Sarah, I... I'm sorry about what happened."
She doesn't acknowledge him at first, just keeps walking. "Nothing happened," she replies, her voice remarkably close to normal, giving that slight shake of her head.
"Come on," he says, frustrated and just a little scared, and she sighs and turns to him without looking at him, that strange distant expression in her eyes, the one she wears when she's about to hurt him.
"I've been... unclear." She nods, very firmly. "So I'll try to make this clear. That cannot happen again. Will not happen again. Understood?"
He nods, jerkily, and she spins on her heel, walking faster than before. "It's just, I... well, you know how much we drank," he trails off, but she didn't drink, she faked her own screwdrivers and played the affectionate girlfriend all too well. Played. And no excuse for his behavior is enough.
"So don't drink," she shoots back, letting him into the Castle.
--
The mission is relatively simple, for them. Huge meeting of prospective clients at a trade show, used as a cover for the terrorist information trade. He's Charles Carmichael, a newcomer to the game, with a new transmission device to demonstrate. Casey and Sarah are part of his team.
He's stupidly disappointed that she isn't going as his wife.
They carpool to Sarah's place at four in the morning, while Chuck is draining his second cup of coffee, stifling yawns every thirty seconds. As he weaves his way through the early traffic on the freeway, Casey glances over at Chuck and grunts.
"You need to put her out of your head, Bartowski."
"What?" Chuck snaps back, irritable. He wasn't able to sleep for remembering the expression on Sarah's face and his worries over the mission. "Who?"
Casey tugs his cap's bill, checking his mirrors. "You aren't Bryce, that's for damn sure," he gives Chuck a sideways glance and a derisive snort, "and he was enough trouble, and an agent to boot. You? Are an assignment. She compromises herself with you and I'm the one you'll be introducing to the family and taking as a date to your sister's wedding."
Chuck can't help it; his lip curls, a little. "What—Did she tell you—"
"She didn't have to. And you can't get it through your head that a cover identity stops as soon as the cameras are off."
"And you're so good at that? After Carina handcuffed you to the bed?"
Casey grunts again. "Agent, remember?"
Chuck sighs and drains the rest of his cooling coffee, digging his short nails into the styrofoam. "So I'm just supposed to turn it off when we're alone."
"What you do," Casey sighs, sounding incredibly put-upon, "is tell yourself that you're that guy, that you're Charles Carmichael, in front of other people, when you're with her. Don't act surprised when she kisses you. Don't get all moon-eyed when she walks up to the Nerd desk. She's yours."
"And then?"
"And then, when the lights go down, remember that you're an intelligence asset and she and I are the only ones holding back what's coming to get you." Casey switches lanes. "So don't go getting all handsy and making her request reassignment."
"So if I were Bryce, we wouldn't be having this conversation," Chuck says slowly.
"If you were Bryce she would've fucked you twelve ways from Sunday instead."
That manages to put him in a worse mood, so he climbs into the back and pretends to sleep on the way to the airport, and every time she speaks he can't help but imagine. Sarah and Bryce on the dance floor. At perfect ease. Equal in every way.
She says the words "tactical impossibility" and he thinks about how, while Bryce was getting him kicked out of Stanford, Sarah was probably training, learning how to distract a man with the flutter of her eyelashes while she slipped a blade from the band at her ankle. But there was a time, before, when she wasn't just Sarah, when she was Jenny Burton, the awkward high school student, the socially awkward girl who would have to learn to tango without giggling and flirt without blushing. He thinks about that surveillance video, Bryce pleading that no matter what Chuck's scores were, he wasn't cut out for this life, that it would break his heart.
He never really felt jealous of their life and now he just pities her, that the slick persona is just another mask. No matter what Casey's advice might be, at least when Chuck goes home at night he doesn't have to remember who he is, who he's supposed to be. He's only Chuck.
"Ready?" Casey doesn't even wait for a reply before he slams the door, leaving Chuck still curled up in the backseat. Chuck sighs and grabs his bag, following Sarah's hair, fluttering loose and fluorescent orange in the sodium lights.
There was a time when she was like me.
For not the first time he wishes that he could will the flashes, that they didn't depend on a specific inflection or a piece of jewelry, that the instant he saw Jill it could have gone off like red flags. He's able to place two men on their flight as white-collar embezzlers, their stewardess as a former asset, but he can't pull up Sarah's file, can't predict where Fulcrum will strike next, can't make this bearable for either of them.
He pulls the pillow over his face and can't stop listening to her silence.