15 step, 4/? (chuck, chuck/sarah, r)
Mar. 3rd, 2009 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndnickersonTitle: 15 Step
Part: 4. ripcord
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ndnickerson
Pairing/Characters: Chuck/Sarah
Series: Chuck
Word Count: 992
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Chuck suggests an evening of cover maintenance.
Spoilers: General through mid-Season 2.
Warnings: Language.
"Seriously?"
"Company policy," Casey says, accepting their room keys with a nod and smile. "Cut down on cost."
"We have to split a room?" After Sarah's pointed silence, punctuated only by comments dealing specifically with their mission, Chuck hadn't exactly been looking forward to splitting a room with her, but at least then they could talk without Casey's snarky comments and eye-rolls. Chuck's single cup of coffee is wearing off; his face is twisted in a disappointed grimace as he lugs his bags into the elevator, Sarah following with her face set in a polite smile. "I mean, for the sake of the cover—"
"The cover that we all work for the same company?"
Sarah shifts her duffel on her shoulder, not looking at either of them. Casey has the gleam in his eye. This is going to be worse than posing as a waiter while Sarah prances around in a metallic bikini, he can already tell. Not that he's thought about that. Much.
"No, our being a couple," he says, shrugging in Sarah's direction.
"Not important."
"But—"
"Chuck, he's right," she says, toying with the zipper on her jacket, her voice sharper than usual. Besides, look what happened last time, she doesn't say, but he hears it just as clearly.
He's always impressed by it, and this time is no different. Chuck has a wheeled suitcase and a duffel; Casey has half the luggage, but a third of it is hardware, weapons, communication equipment, which Casey thoroughly checks as soon as the door is locked and the room swept for surveillance and listening devices.
Sarah is owning the business-casual look when they meet in the lobby, her hair up in a bun, nice heels, tight skirt. Reminds him of a Whitesnake video, really. Like at any moment she'll rip open the conservative blouse and writhe on the hood of a vintage car.
"We've already made a contact," she says urgently, and he thinks sternly, Less Whitesnake, more Margaret Thatcher. "Directly behind me. Bald, brown suit, red tie."
Chuck glances over, his mouth twisting. "And one hideous—"
Pinky ring, he means to finish, but in the space of half a second the Intersect has identified him as Les Thomssen and shown Chuck a string of signature killings, copies of his 2003 financial statements, and a rhesus monkey in a frilly blue bonnet.
"Les Thomssen," Chuck fills in. "Bad, bad guy."
Sarah glances over at Casey, reaching for the briefcase that contains their mock-up transceiver. "Fulcrum?"
"Well, honestly, when it comes to shooting people through the heart and removing their right thumbs as trophies, really, is there that much of a moral high ground?"
Casey grants him a grudging eyebrow-raise, and Sarah glances over the two of them, smoothing her suit jacket.
"Change of plans. I'll be primary. Casey...?"
"On it," Casey replies, grabbing Chuck's arm and marching him toward the men's room. "Time to grow up, Carmichael," he grates.
Growing up, apparently, involves a spirit-gummed mustache and wide tinted aviator glasses. The sight of himself in the mirror is enough to give Chuck nightmares. "I look like an idiot," he hisses, whipping the glasses off. "Unless this is just some long practical joke with the punchline being something about a Magnum, PI convention—"
Casey stops, fixing him with a sardonic glare. "Yes. We let you, you egregious risk to national security, walk around free for so long just so we could bring you here and dress you up like Tom Selleck. Man up."
He hands over a heavy gun, which Chuck promptly almost drops, causing Casey to go through another dramatic eye-roll. "Why do I even need this?" he asks, raising his arms as Casey fits the holster around his waist.
"Because they'll expect it."
"And what exactly am I supposed to do with it?"
"Exactly what I tell you to do," Casey says, as though that's self-evident. "I point, you take the safety off and point. I shoot, you... well, just try not to cry like a little girl too much."
Chuck makes a face as they walk out of the bathroom, the weight of the gun a little too immediate to allow him to think of anything else.
They work out a set of signals, just in case Chuck flashes on anything else, then walk over to Thomssen, flanking Sarah. The conversation itself is vague and nuanced, and utterly boring; Chuck keeps one ear on it just in case the Intersect decides to tell him that Thomssen is really involved in a plan to raise Hitler from the dead or start global thermonuclear war, but the rest of him wanders.
In public, with her, be Charles Carmichael.
But he can't. In all actuality, Charles is a fixed point, an alternate reality he'll never inhabit. He'll never be the suave, super-rich retired genius, the kind of guy Jill, or at least the Jill he'd thought he knew, would deeply regret losing, the kind of guy Sarah Walker would snuggle up to in an attempt to seduce and interrogate. The day Chuck moved out of Stanford was the day he'd realized that he'd never make it there. And even if he could have thanked Bryce for trying to keep him out of this life, Chuck knows that every moment since that ill-timed decision, he's been running in place, trying to regain just a tenth of the confidence he lost when he went to work at Buy More.
And here he is, in this life anyway, and utterly unprepared for it, in every single possible way.
Chuck shifts his weight and tries to keep his face straight, as Sarah puts on her charming grin, opens the briefcase, allows Thomssen a peek. Charles Carmichael would invite her to his yacht, jet her around the world, buy her flowers.
Chuck doesn't even know what her favorite movie is.
But he'll be damn sure to find out.
Part: 4. ripcord
Author:
ndnickersonPairing/Characters: Chuck/Sarah
Series: Chuck
Word Count: 992
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Chuck suggests an evening of cover maintenance.
Spoilers: General through mid-Season 2.
Warnings: Language.
"Seriously?"
"Company policy," Casey says, accepting their room keys with a nod and smile. "Cut down on cost."
"We have to split a room?" After Sarah's pointed silence, punctuated only by comments dealing specifically with their mission, Chuck hadn't exactly been looking forward to splitting a room with her, but at least then they could talk without Casey's snarky comments and eye-rolls. Chuck's single cup of coffee is wearing off; his face is twisted in a disappointed grimace as he lugs his bags into the elevator, Sarah following with her face set in a polite smile. "I mean, for the sake of the cover—"
"The cover that we all work for the same company?"
Sarah shifts her duffel on her shoulder, not looking at either of them. Casey has the gleam in his eye. This is going to be worse than posing as a waiter while Sarah prances around in a metallic bikini, he can already tell. Not that he's thought about that. Much.
"No, our being a couple," he says, shrugging in Sarah's direction.
"Not important."
"But—"
"Chuck, he's right," she says, toying with the zipper on her jacket, her voice sharper than usual. Besides, look what happened last time, she doesn't say, but he hears it just as clearly.
He's always impressed by it, and this time is no different. Chuck has a wheeled suitcase and a duffel; Casey has half the luggage, but a third of it is hardware, weapons, communication equipment, which Casey thoroughly checks as soon as the door is locked and the room swept for surveillance and listening devices.
Sarah is owning the business-casual look when they meet in the lobby, her hair up in a bun, nice heels, tight skirt. Reminds him of a Whitesnake video, really. Like at any moment she'll rip open the conservative blouse and writhe on the hood of a vintage car.
"We've already made a contact," she says urgently, and he thinks sternly, Less Whitesnake, more Margaret Thatcher. "Directly behind me. Bald, brown suit, red tie."
Chuck glances over, his mouth twisting. "And one hideous—"
Pinky ring, he means to finish, but in the space of half a second the Intersect has identified him as Les Thomssen and shown Chuck a string of signature killings, copies of his 2003 financial statements, and a rhesus monkey in a frilly blue bonnet.
"Les Thomssen," Chuck fills in. "Bad, bad guy."
Sarah glances over at Casey, reaching for the briefcase that contains their mock-up transceiver. "Fulcrum?"
"Well, honestly, when it comes to shooting people through the heart and removing their right thumbs as trophies, really, is there that much of a moral high ground?"
Casey grants him a grudging eyebrow-raise, and Sarah glances over the two of them, smoothing her suit jacket.
"Change of plans. I'll be primary. Casey...?"
"On it," Casey replies, grabbing Chuck's arm and marching him toward the men's room. "Time to grow up, Carmichael," he grates.
Growing up, apparently, involves a spirit-gummed mustache and wide tinted aviator glasses. The sight of himself in the mirror is enough to give Chuck nightmares. "I look like an idiot," he hisses, whipping the glasses off. "Unless this is just some long practical joke with the punchline being something about a Magnum, PI convention—"
Casey stops, fixing him with a sardonic glare. "Yes. We let you, you egregious risk to national security, walk around free for so long just so we could bring you here and dress you up like Tom Selleck. Man up."
He hands over a heavy gun, which Chuck promptly almost drops, causing Casey to go through another dramatic eye-roll. "Why do I even need this?" he asks, raising his arms as Casey fits the holster around his waist.
"Because they'll expect it."
"And what exactly am I supposed to do with it?"
"Exactly what I tell you to do," Casey says, as though that's self-evident. "I point, you take the safety off and point. I shoot, you... well, just try not to cry like a little girl too much."
Chuck makes a face as they walk out of the bathroom, the weight of the gun a little too immediate to allow him to think of anything else.
They work out a set of signals, just in case Chuck flashes on anything else, then walk over to Thomssen, flanking Sarah. The conversation itself is vague and nuanced, and utterly boring; Chuck keeps one ear on it just in case the Intersect decides to tell him that Thomssen is really involved in a plan to raise Hitler from the dead or start global thermonuclear war, but the rest of him wanders.
In public, with her, be Charles Carmichael.
But he can't. In all actuality, Charles is a fixed point, an alternate reality he'll never inhabit. He'll never be the suave, super-rich retired genius, the kind of guy Jill, or at least the Jill he'd thought he knew, would deeply regret losing, the kind of guy Sarah Walker would snuggle up to in an attempt to seduce and interrogate. The day Chuck moved out of Stanford was the day he'd realized that he'd never make it there. And even if he could have thanked Bryce for trying to keep him out of this life, Chuck knows that every moment since that ill-timed decision, he's been running in place, trying to regain just a tenth of the confidence he lost when he went to work at Buy More.
And here he is, in this life anyway, and utterly unprepared for it, in every single possible way.
Chuck shifts his weight and tries to keep his face straight, as Sarah puts on her charming grin, opens the briefcase, allows Thomssen a peek. Charles Carmichael would invite her to his yacht, jet her around the world, buy her flowers.
Chuck doesn't even know what her favorite movie is.
But he'll be damn sure to find out.