silent lucidity (chuck/sarah, nc-17)
Jan. 24th, 2010 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndnickersonTitle: silent lucidity
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ndnickerson
Fandom: Chuck
Characters: Chuck/Sarah
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Sarah Walker believes in making her own luck.
Spoilers: To be safe, through 3x03, although probably only really through 3x01. Set a few months after the beginning of S3.
Word Count: 4439
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue.
Note: Written formikki13, very belatedly.
Sarah Walker.
He knows their relationship in numbers, so many numbers. The count of days since their first date. The smiles she's given him (with teeth, without, sincere, cover, while laughing, strained, with that little twist to her lips). The kisses she has given him since Prague... well, he doesn't think about that, because, while a part of them was very, very, dangerously real, most of them were not real, not real at all.
("That wasn't the kiss I was expecting.")
He figured out how to say it later, once it was far, far too late, when his last connection to her was the fact that her cell phone still rang when he called to leave another pointless message, to pour his heart out into another voicemail that was destined to be deleted upon receipt. Like she had turned the volume all the way down but she was still watching, like he could just wear her away, word by impassioned word. He honed himself, honed the awful burble down, distilled it.
("Sarah, don't you understand that this, if we do this, what we have won't be real, not really. Sure, you and I will be together, and maybe you're saying that that's enough, but Ellie? To never see Ellie again? To never talk Morgan out of another stupid decision? You've told me so many times that what you want is a real, normal life, but when would we stop being on the run? When would I get to stop looking over my shoulder, when could I actually be myself again? Because, really, then, it's like we've never stopped being spies at all, like it's just another cover, and I need more from you, than that." But he never says it.)
He runs into her. He's in a loose blue shirt, ducking in to pick up an order of hot wings that Morgan begged him to get, as payment for one of Lester's constant ridiculous bets, and Sarah is there, at the bar, laughing. Her blue eyes dance and her hair is in a loose golden tumble down her back, over her shoulder blades. She's in a dress, a soft silver-green, and for the first time since Prague she looks vulnerable, really as though he could touch her and not feel his fingertips freeze on contact.
"Sarah."
And that hard veil descends, that wall she told him to build, but she tips back another shot and the tequila is almost coming off her in waves.
"Hey, Chuck."
A guy who could pass for Lester's mildly more attractive cousin is leaning far too close to her, mesmerized by her, and Chuck puts his hand on Sarah's shoulder, nods to the bartender for the tab.
"Come on. I'll take you home."
Morgan is, of course, slightly startled to see a visibly drunk and genuinely giggly Sarah Walker at their door, and he exchanges a preemptive congratulatory fist-bump with Chuck. "No, no, it's not like that, it's just, she's a mess and I'm going to take her home."
"And I'll see you in the morning, my man." Morgan shakes his head with envy.
It's in the car that she says it.
"Just... why don't you come up with me."
"So we can talk?" Chuck glances at her, feeling churlish, unable to stop himself.
"Yeah." Her voice is husky with meaning. "So we can... talk."
Something in him has always believed this is what it would take: too much alcohol, a rash decision, that strange threshold between dreaming and wakefulness, the tick of a time bomb. Their meeting in the train station feels like another life entirely, and it was; he felt adrift, like all that time would be wasted if he didn't make the most of it, like running away with Sarah Walker would just end a few months later with her staring at him, resigned to never telling him that they had made the wrong choice, that after she had told him so many times that she was the hero he'd never expected himself to become, that his abandoning that destiny, even for her, would tear them apart.
(He will not admit it, under pain of torture or hot boiling oil, but part of him has never, ever felt good enough for Sarah Walker, and he'd somehow convinced himself that after six months in training, after he became at least part of who Bryce had been, they could pick this up again, this tenuous thread between them, and be equal. But sometimes he knows they will never be equal, that he'll never be able to flip it on and off the way she can. And most of him is glad.)
Chuck pats her knee and she pouts, anger flashing in her eyes at the condescension. "Soon you'll be home, and sleep it off, and we'll talk tomorrow."
The valet knows him, and Chuck begins to motion that he's just letting Sarah out when she stomps out of the car without even saying goodbye, and walks to a cab stand, arm already raised. He scrambles after her, and she catches his hand in hers. Their palms are slightly tacky where they touch. It makes his mouth dry.
"We're newlyweds and we're just here for our honeymoon, and we wanted to see the city. You know. Just for tonight." Sarah flashes her best grin at the taxi driver, and Chuck glances down, wonderingly. His hand is still in hers. The taxi pulls away from the curb and she sways at the movement, the delicate haze of her perfume drifting from her hair as she lifts it and lets it fall in a heavy audible curtain against her shoulders again.
"I know, I said, that I wasn't, going to..." She stops, and clears her throat, and appears to be addressing his left knee. "I mean, after what happened, in Santa Fe, and the border station..."
He has found, not unsurprisingly, that his flashes are most vivid when he thinks Sarah is in danger, when he needs to save her. And Sarah Walker isn't the kind of girl who needs saving. He just hadn't known that it was the same for her.
"There are always, all these things, and Bryce, and..." She throws her hands up and Chuck has never, ever seen her this way, not like this. "I just don't want this to end, like that. Without you knowing."
"Well..." He squeezes her hand. "When you ask a guy to run away with you, to abandon his career and yours... that's a pretty good indication."
"But this... when I came up with the escape plan, our lives... don't you see, that's the only way. Like this..."
"And if I'd gone up to your room with you, well, let's just say that Beckman would have been on the phone, sending you to Greenland, before I'd even gotten my shoes off."
She shakes her head. "Chuck, I told you. It's my personal residence. We aren't watched there."
"You want to bet?"
"So what are you saying? That if I told the cab to pull over at the next hotel, you'd go for it?"
She gazes at him, her brow only slightly furrowed, and Chuck almost forgets to breathe, she is so beautiful.
"I think we're going to have to be more careful than that."
--
She should have known better, after the 49B, but she wanted to believe that she had this small bit of space to herself. She has to give Beckman credit; the search is three hours long, ridiculously thorough, and the pinhole camera is the smallest she's ever seen. The audio is encrypted, the frequency a few clicks higher than the one she would have chosen. She thinks guiltily of nightmares and conversations with Carina and how guarded she thought she was, how fragile her own reputation might be now.
It takes three weeks again, and there are new numbers: fake social security numbers, the numbers of prepaid cell phones, down payments. Wigs and sunglasses. The number of steps between the parking lot and the front door, up the staircase, to the apartment door.
Sarah does most of it, almost all of it. Once, in an unguarded moment, when she glances at him with that same slightly stricken look in her eyes, he wraps his arms around her and tells her that it'll be right this time, it'll be good this time, and the wariness fades a little.
--
Chip and Lucy Wallace.
He has a briefcase for all his disguises but this, for this, they have a whole other set of codes and signs. He keeps the Chip identity guarded, so guarded. He has a different car, a secondhand sand-colored Camry. He himself is different, as Chip, just as different as he is from Charles Carmichael; Chip could pass for one of Awesome's frat buddies, in his pastel polo shirts and wrinkled khakis and soft loafers. He even wears a simple silver band, for this, the inner curve engraved with a heart and the initials SW in delicate script, and he can almost feel it in reverse on his skin even when he isn't wearing it.
The first time he leaves his life for this one, finding a tarnished gold lamp with a battered shade in a junky antique shop, stocking up on cans of soup and lemon-lime soda and vegetarian pizza, he thinks of what Awesome said, that giving up half his life for this wasn't worth it.
Chuck will give almost anything to be with Sarah, almost anything. Just not himself. And if it takes being Chip to walk through that door so that Chuck can see her waiting for him in the apartment they steal time to share, he'll take it. He'll take it as long as it's there.
--
Nothing feels the same with his heart beating this fast. He's so close he can almost feel her mouth crushing his, but he looks full into the face of each person he sees on the way in, waiting for a flash to tell him that it's all over, that he has to burn this bridge and walk away, that he will burn with desire for her for another week, another month, another year.
But it doesn't happen. There are no flashes, no chance encounters with drug dealers or undercover CIA operatives. It's just him, waving with two fingers, a tarnished brass lamp in one hand and a paper sack of groceries in the other, taking the steps two at a time.
When he walks in, the curtains are drawn against the sullen beat of the afternoon sunlight and she's dipping a wooden match into another candle. Her gaze rises to his and he kicks the door shut behind him, putting the lamp down on their age-stained dining room table, the sack of groceries beside it, feeling like he's moving underwater, like any second this will all become an elaborate dream.
He hands her a half-dozen red roses and her mouth quirks. "Wish I had a vase, Mr. Wallace."
"There's time enough for that." He smiles down at her, so wide his eyes crinkle at the corners. "Mrs. Wallace."
--
They don't have sex, that first night together in their stolen lives, but there's a time when he doesn't know that. The hideous mustard-yellow bedside lamp is on, a few candles gutter and blink to each other in the window, and Chuck's sitting up in the bed, in his boxers and undershirt, as Sarah steps out of the bathroom. Her blonde hair is tousled, finger-combed, and she stands balanced on one foot and the toe of the other like some blushing virginal bride, in a brief slip of ivory silk trimmed in black, the points of her tight nipples already showing through the thin fabric. Her tanned legs are miles long and she's biting her lower lip, one hand still propped against the doorframe, and she is so exquisite that he has to remind himself to breathe. He tries not to see himself through her eyes, the plain white undershirt and the blue pinstripe boxers, still so new that the fabric is stiff against his thighs. He tries not to wonder how much less this feels than what they would have had, after Prague.
And when their cell phones go off simultaneously, while he has one hand cupped against her thigh and the other buried in her hair, their mouths pressed hot and desperate in a long, slow kiss, he tries not to groan, reminds himself that this was never going to be foolproof. But it's just like the General to be this much of a cockblock.
They make it back, though. Hours later, after the candles have drowned themselves and the roses are already beginning to wilt. They take turns in the bathroom, brushing teeth and washing faces, and the normality, the domestic simplicity of it fills him with almost uncomfortable longing. When they tumble into bed she's in an oversized t-shirt that swallows her curves and they sleep with her face buried against his shoulder and his lips resting against the crown of her head.
--
"You think you two can play married without getting your lady feelings involved?"
Chuck somehow manages not to turn a sharp glance at Casey, but keeps his gaze on the blueprints laid out on the Castle table. "Since when has that ever stopped us?" he replies, scratching his ear.
"We'll be fine," Sarah says, reproach in her voice, as she maneuvers around Casey, heading for the vault. Where they keep their rings, their high-end weaponry. Their lesser lives.
And they are fine, somehow. Chuck's jaw tightens a little when Sarah's hand rests a moment too long on the mark's arm, but it's reflex; he can't help it. Her dress is a vivid, rich blue that makes her eyes all the stormier by comparison.
But none of that matters, because they are going to sneak away, tonight.
--
Chip and Lucy Wallace aren't really newlyweds, anymore. So he shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be kicking the door shut, gathering her up into his arms just to brace her hips against the kitchen counter as she chuckles into his mouth. He does it anyway.
"Hello, darling," Chuck says, and his face changes entirely with his grin, from his lips to his eyes. All of him. He is alight.
"Hi, dear," Sarah replies, wrapping her legs around his waist, her skirt riding up above her thighs.
"Hungry?"
"Not in the least," she says, peering at him through her lashes. "Not for food, anyway."
He laughs and leans forward and he's still grinning when he kisses her. It's not in his nature to do something half-measure, and whatever he's feeling is right there on his face for the world to see, and she's never had any doubt about how he feels about her. It's frightening to her, how much she missed that; being Jack Burton's daughter meant never, ever risking what she couldn't afford to lose.
Chuck's hands are sliding her skirt up above her hips, his hands cupping her ass. She swiftly unbuttons the pale cotton shirt "Lucy" wore to work that day and it falls from her wrists to the counter. She laughs as Chuck buries his face against her chest, leaving her to brace on her palms. His lips brush the soft skin between her breasts, his tongue dipping under the fabric between the cups of her bra.
She's waiting for that tiny prickle between her shoulder blades, the sound of the other shoe dropping.
But it doesn't come, and she giggles against Chuck's mouth as he starts to carry her to the bedroom but trips so they land on the couch, together, his long lean body fully against hers, her thighs holding his hips to her.
She forces herself not to wonder how long she can make it last.
--
"Sometimes, Angel Hair, the planets all line up, and you just have to take it."
She'd had her driver's permit for all of two weeks. Her father had his arm stretched along the passenger door. His cheek was bruised. His shirt had been white once, but it was wrinkled from a night spent in lock-up.
Her happiness at seeing him relatively whole was slowly eclipsed by her frustration that she never ever ever had a normal life, not really. Other kids, when they outgrew their winter jackets, didn't learn how to distract the sales clerk while their fathers shoplifted new ones. Other girls didn't wonder if their lunchboxes would hold a sandwich and a candy bar, or maybe a pawn ticket and a hip flask.
She spared him a glance as she pulled to a slow stop at a light. "So where was the glitch?"
Her father shrugged, digging in his pockets for a matchbook. Another lead.
"Sometimes you have to make your own luck."
She shook her head, checking before she pulled into the intersection. Luck was worthless. She made plans for what she wanted, because this wouldn't be her life forever, scamming innocent people out of their money. She hated seeing the cops at their door, because the cops were always right. They didn't go to sleep at night, wondering when it was all going to catch up with them, trying to ignore the guilt away.
"What do you want for lunch?"
"McDonald's." At least there they wouldn't have to do a dine-and-dash.
He tousled her hair and she wrinkled her nose at him. "Only the best for my Angel Hair."
--
"General."
Beckman glanced up from her ubiquitous paperwork, brow furrowed in impatience. Sarah stood facing the screen, in her Orange Orange uniform, hands behind her back. Chuck was safely at home, Casey doing some recon; she was alone, for now.
"Yes, Agent Walker?"
"My orders are to keep Chuck Bartowski safe and emotionally stable so he can continue working with the Intersect project."
Beckman put her pen down and folded her hands slowly. "Yes," she said, her voice a condescending drawl.
"Do I have your permission to interpret that order in any way I find fit?"
"Walker?"
Sarah forced herself to meet the General's hard gaze, through the video screen. "The boundaries of our relationship as defined by the Agency's guidelines hardly seem applicable, given the unusual situation this project has put us in."
"Meaning precisely what?"
"Meaning," Sarah clenched her hands together, "that if you want him to be the best agent he can, I have to seduce him."
Beckman's eyebrows rose almost to her hairline, and her expression somehow darkened even more. "Given your previous behavior, Miss Walker, and the 49B—"
Sarah's hands, already slick with sweat, slipped apart as she tightened her hands into angry fists. "He has feelings for me, General," she snapped out. "Forcing him not to acknowledge that just makes him more emotional."
"Are you sure it's his feelings you're concerned about?" Beckman was almost out of her chair, leaning in, and Sarah instantly parsed it and sorted it. The General was trying to intimidate her. But Sarah had seen her in person, and Sarah knew that, without her, Beckman would be left scrambling for an agent of her caliber who would agree to be stranded in L.A. on a black project for the foreseeable future.
And that alone gave her the spine to say, "If you knew how many times I've stopped myself— General, if you want him in this project, then give him something to invest in. You threw him away. Don't you think that has some bearing on his lack of confidence?"
"His lack of confidence is deserved," Beckman snapped. "If it were up to me—"
The General's face froze. "What," Sarah said slowly, "what exactly would you do, if it were up to you?"
And it crossed Beckman's face, what Sarah already knew. That Chuck would be the Intersect for as long as it took for a real agent to be uploaded. He would never have a chance.
Sarah sat down on the edge of the conference table. "I know for a fact that this is going to make him better. He won't be worried about his relationship with me. He will be dedicated to this project."
"For as long as you're a part of it, you mean."
Sarah raised her eyebrows. "Do we need to go through the CIA liaison over this? Is my status on this project in doubt, General?"
Beckman sighed. "You're not going to let this go, are you."
Sarah shook her head. "If you want him to do a good job, this needs to happen."
"There won't be any more 49Bs."
"There couldn't," she pointed out, "since I'm no longer his handler. And this is going to be on my terms."
Beckman narrowed her eyes. "Don't push it, Walker."
She punched the button, ending the video conference. Sarah let the tension begin to drain out of her, until she was shaking.
Her terms. Her terms or nothing.
By the time she hit the doors of the Orange Orange, she was almost running.
--
They are alone, entirely alone. Their clothes trail from the front door, through the living room, all the way to the bedroom. No candles this time; she almost feels like that jinxes it. No nightgown. Just warm flesh and stiff sheets.
"Chuck," she sighs.
These are her terms:
They are not watched. She's whispered into his ear, in the last five minutes alone, how much she wants him, how much she needs him, how much she loves him, and every word of it has been true. Just like every reverent whisper from his lips, telling her how beautiful she is, how much he's wanted her, how long he's loved her.
And whatever this is, it isn't seduction. There was no convincing. All they needed was a pocket of their lives that wasn't surveilled or questioned or more than half lies.
Another alias just to tell him the truth.
Her fingers have traced all the lines of him, the defined muscle of his shoulders now that they're training together, the heft of his shoulder blades, his abs as they tense under her touch. He kept his gaze on her face as her hand found his erection, traced it, took it in her hand. Waiting for her to judge him.
She is more than pleased with him. His own hands are warm on her breasts, down her sides, against her inner thighs. Given their track record they should be speeding through this, should already be panting in the afterglow, but she can't help it. This is their first time. This will never happen this way again, and besides, the waves of pure longing that ripple through her when he latches onto her nipple, his long fingers buried between her thighs, are too amazing to give up.
She's arched, almost tight against him, when he slides his fingers out of her, and her eyes slowly open. He smiles at her, and almost dives off the bed, groping on the floor for his pants.
"Nightstand," she mumbles, pulling her thighs tight together, and rolls over, pulling the biggest box she could find out of the drawer. They fumble the box open and she rips open a foil wrapper, and they roll the condom onto him together.
"This is really happening, isn't it."
"Better be," she tells him, wrapping her legs around him, her thighs spread wide to take his weight. "If that damn phone rings I'll put a knife through it."
He laughs and lowers himself to her, his hips even with hers, and their gazes lock, leaving them both speechless.
There have been men she rushed through it, not wanting to hear how muted their declarations of love are, not wanting to let herself think about it. Seduction school - that was easy. This is the rest of her life.
He fits himself just inside her and pushes and she arches, gasping as he slides his entire length between her legs, slow, slow and his hips brush her thighs and she buries her fingers in his hair, bracing against the mattress.
"Been a while," he whispers.
"Yeah," she whispers, shifting, and the ache dissolves as he pulls out of her and sinks again. "Deeper," she moans, rotating her hips and she feels texture against her clit, and her muscles tighten against him, her mouth against his neck.
"Do that again—"
It's a warning but she does it anyway, head tilted back, lips curling up as he lets out a soft anguished moan and pushes back out of her. The rhythm of his thrusts starts too fast and only gets faster, her breasts trembling as he drives home, flush to her hips. She pulls her knees up, her nails raking up his back, up to dig into his spine and draw him closer, closer.
"God, Sarah, this is so fucking amazing," he pants out, and when she feels him get close, trembling in the effort of holding himself back, she slides her hand between them and rubs her clit, crying out as her inner flesh ripples and tightens against him, and he comes, shaking, her face against his shoulder.
And the world hasn't ended.
She pulls her hand free and her legs fall loose to the bed, as Chuck groans, not moving.
"I'm never leaving," he says, into the pillow. "Fuck, Sarah."
"Yeah," she whispers, kissing his neck. "I knew you'd be good, but damn."
He moves, then, pulls back to look at her. "I didn't even know if I'd be good."
"It's in the Intersect 2.0," she says, keeping her eyes wide and innocent.
And he curses and laughs, finding all her ticklish places with his long fingers, the sheets rumpled around them. Eventually she kisses him, slow, teases his nipples with her tongue, strokes the hot weight of his shaft before taking him into her mouth and teasing him to a long, incredibly profane orgasm; eventually he rolls her onto her knees and she grips the headboard, panting, her knees sliding wide as he suckles her clit and she fucks his long fingers to another trembling orgasm.
Maybe, eventually, there will be a little house and a patch of yard and a normal life, the kind of life she's never had, the kind of life she's always wanted. But, for now, they will have to drag themselves out of bed in the morning and go back to their lives, back to Chuck and Sarah, who have to wait.
Chip and Lucy Wallace.
It isn't perfect, but it's a start.
Author:
ndnickersonFandom: Chuck
Characters: Chuck/Sarah
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Sarah Walker believes in making her own luck.
Spoilers: To be safe, through 3x03, although probably only really through 3x01. Set a few months after the beginning of S3.
Word Count: 4439
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue.
Note: Written for
mikki13, very belatedly.Sarah Walker.
He knows their relationship in numbers, so many numbers. The count of days since their first date. The smiles she's given him (with teeth, without, sincere, cover, while laughing, strained, with that little twist to her lips). The kisses she has given him since Prague... well, he doesn't think about that, because, while a part of them was very, very, dangerously real, most of them were not real, not real at all.
("That wasn't the kiss I was expecting.")
He figured out how to say it later, once it was far, far too late, when his last connection to her was the fact that her cell phone still rang when he called to leave another pointless message, to pour his heart out into another voicemail that was destined to be deleted upon receipt. Like she had turned the volume all the way down but she was still watching, like he could just wear her away, word by impassioned word. He honed himself, honed the awful burble down, distilled it.
("Sarah, don't you understand that this, if we do this, what we have won't be real, not really. Sure, you and I will be together, and maybe you're saying that that's enough, but Ellie? To never see Ellie again? To never talk Morgan out of another stupid decision? You've told me so many times that what you want is a real, normal life, but when would we stop being on the run? When would I get to stop looking over my shoulder, when could I actually be myself again? Because, really, then, it's like we've never stopped being spies at all, like it's just another cover, and I need more from you, than that." But he never says it.)
He runs into her. He's in a loose blue shirt, ducking in to pick up an order of hot wings that Morgan begged him to get, as payment for one of Lester's constant ridiculous bets, and Sarah is there, at the bar, laughing. Her blue eyes dance and her hair is in a loose golden tumble down her back, over her shoulder blades. She's in a dress, a soft silver-green, and for the first time since Prague she looks vulnerable, really as though he could touch her and not feel his fingertips freeze on contact.
"Sarah."
And that hard veil descends, that wall she told him to build, but she tips back another shot and the tequila is almost coming off her in waves.
"Hey, Chuck."
A guy who could pass for Lester's mildly more attractive cousin is leaning far too close to her, mesmerized by her, and Chuck puts his hand on Sarah's shoulder, nods to the bartender for the tab.
"Come on. I'll take you home."
Morgan is, of course, slightly startled to see a visibly drunk and genuinely giggly Sarah Walker at their door, and he exchanges a preemptive congratulatory fist-bump with Chuck. "No, no, it's not like that, it's just, she's a mess and I'm going to take her home."
"And I'll see you in the morning, my man." Morgan shakes his head with envy.
It's in the car that she says it.
"Just... why don't you come up with me."
"So we can talk?" Chuck glances at her, feeling churlish, unable to stop himself.
"Yeah." Her voice is husky with meaning. "So we can... talk."
Something in him has always believed this is what it would take: too much alcohol, a rash decision, that strange threshold between dreaming and wakefulness, the tick of a time bomb. Their meeting in the train station feels like another life entirely, and it was; he felt adrift, like all that time would be wasted if he didn't make the most of it, like running away with Sarah Walker would just end a few months later with her staring at him, resigned to never telling him that they had made the wrong choice, that after she had told him so many times that she was the hero he'd never expected himself to become, that his abandoning that destiny, even for her, would tear them apart.
(He will not admit it, under pain of torture or hot boiling oil, but part of him has never, ever felt good enough for Sarah Walker, and he'd somehow convinced himself that after six months in training, after he became at least part of who Bryce had been, they could pick this up again, this tenuous thread between them, and be equal. But sometimes he knows they will never be equal, that he'll never be able to flip it on and off the way she can. And most of him is glad.)
Chuck pats her knee and she pouts, anger flashing in her eyes at the condescension. "Soon you'll be home, and sleep it off, and we'll talk tomorrow."
The valet knows him, and Chuck begins to motion that he's just letting Sarah out when she stomps out of the car without even saying goodbye, and walks to a cab stand, arm already raised. He scrambles after her, and she catches his hand in hers. Their palms are slightly tacky where they touch. It makes his mouth dry.
"We're newlyweds and we're just here for our honeymoon, and we wanted to see the city. You know. Just for tonight." Sarah flashes her best grin at the taxi driver, and Chuck glances down, wonderingly. His hand is still in hers. The taxi pulls away from the curb and she sways at the movement, the delicate haze of her perfume drifting from her hair as she lifts it and lets it fall in a heavy audible curtain against her shoulders again.
"I know, I said, that I wasn't, going to..." She stops, and clears her throat, and appears to be addressing his left knee. "I mean, after what happened, in Santa Fe, and the border station..."
He has found, not unsurprisingly, that his flashes are most vivid when he thinks Sarah is in danger, when he needs to save her. And Sarah Walker isn't the kind of girl who needs saving. He just hadn't known that it was the same for her.
"There are always, all these things, and Bryce, and..." She throws her hands up and Chuck has never, ever seen her this way, not like this. "I just don't want this to end, like that. Without you knowing."
"Well..." He squeezes her hand. "When you ask a guy to run away with you, to abandon his career and yours... that's a pretty good indication."
"But this... when I came up with the escape plan, our lives... don't you see, that's the only way. Like this..."
"And if I'd gone up to your room with you, well, let's just say that Beckman would have been on the phone, sending you to Greenland, before I'd even gotten my shoes off."
She shakes her head. "Chuck, I told you. It's my personal residence. We aren't watched there."
"You want to bet?"
"So what are you saying? That if I told the cab to pull over at the next hotel, you'd go for it?"
She gazes at him, her brow only slightly furrowed, and Chuck almost forgets to breathe, she is so beautiful.
"I think we're going to have to be more careful than that."
--
She should have known better, after the 49B, but she wanted to believe that she had this small bit of space to herself. She has to give Beckman credit; the search is three hours long, ridiculously thorough, and the pinhole camera is the smallest she's ever seen. The audio is encrypted, the frequency a few clicks higher than the one she would have chosen. She thinks guiltily of nightmares and conversations with Carina and how guarded she thought she was, how fragile her own reputation might be now.
It takes three weeks again, and there are new numbers: fake social security numbers, the numbers of prepaid cell phones, down payments. Wigs and sunglasses. The number of steps between the parking lot and the front door, up the staircase, to the apartment door.
Sarah does most of it, almost all of it. Once, in an unguarded moment, when she glances at him with that same slightly stricken look in her eyes, he wraps his arms around her and tells her that it'll be right this time, it'll be good this time, and the wariness fades a little.
--
Chip and Lucy Wallace.
He has a briefcase for all his disguises but this, for this, they have a whole other set of codes and signs. He keeps the Chip identity guarded, so guarded. He has a different car, a secondhand sand-colored Camry. He himself is different, as Chip, just as different as he is from Charles Carmichael; Chip could pass for one of Awesome's frat buddies, in his pastel polo shirts and wrinkled khakis and soft loafers. He even wears a simple silver band, for this, the inner curve engraved with a heart and the initials SW in delicate script, and he can almost feel it in reverse on his skin even when he isn't wearing it.
The first time he leaves his life for this one, finding a tarnished gold lamp with a battered shade in a junky antique shop, stocking up on cans of soup and lemon-lime soda and vegetarian pizza, he thinks of what Awesome said, that giving up half his life for this wasn't worth it.
Chuck will give almost anything to be with Sarah, almost anything. Just not himself. And if it takes being Chip to walk through that door so that Chuck can see her waiting for him in the apartment they steal time to share, he'll take it. He'll take it as long as it's there.
--
Nothing feels the same with his heart beating this fast. He's so close he can almost feel her mouth crushing his, but he looks full into the face of each person he sees on the way in, waiting for a flash to tell him that it's all over, that he has to burn this bridge and walk away, that he will burn with desire for her for another week, another month, another year.
But it doesn't happen. There are no flashes, no chance encounters with drug dealers or undercover CIA operatives. It's just him, waving with two fingers, a tarnished brass lamp in one hand and a paper sack of groceries in the other, taking the steps two at a time.
When he walks in, the curtains are drawn against the sullen beat of the afternoon sunlight and she's dipping a wooden match into another candle. Her gaze rises to his and he kicks the door shut behind him, putting the lamp down on their age-stained dining room table, the sack of groceries beside it, feeling like he's moving underwater, like any second this will all become an elaborate dream.
He hands her a half-dozen red roses and her mouth quirks. "Wish I had a vase, Mr. Wallace."
"There's time enough for that." He smiles down at her, so wide his eyes crinkle at the corners. "Mrs. Wallace."
--
They don't have sex, that first night together in their stolen lives, but there's a time when he doesn't know that. The hideous mustard-yellow bedside lamp is on, a few candles gutter and blink to each other in the window, and Chuck's sitting up in the bed, in his boxers and undershirt, as Sarah steps out of the bathroom. Her blonde hair is tousled, finger-combed, and she stands balanced on one foot and the toe of the other like some blushing virginal bride, in a brief slip of ivory silk trimmed in black, the points of her tight nipples already showing through the thin fabric. Her tanned legs are miles long and she's biting her lower lip, one hand still propped against the doorframe, and she is so exquisite that he has to remind himself to breathe. He tries not to see himself through her eyes, the plain white undershirt and the blue pinstripe boxers, still so new that the fabric is stiff against his thighs. He tries not to wonder how much less this feels than what they would have had, after Prague.
And when their cell phones go off simultaneously, while he has one hand cupped against her thigh and the other buried in her hair, their mouths pressed hot and desperate in a long, slow kiss, he tries not to groan, reminds himself that this was never going to be foolproof. But it's just like the General to be this much of a cockblock.
They make it back, though. Hours later, after the candles have drowned themselves and the roses are already beginning to wilt. They take turns in the bathroom, brushing teeth and washing faces, and the normality, the domestic simplicity of it fills him with almost uncomfortable longing. When they tumble into bed she's in an oversized t-shirt that swallows her curves and they sleep with her face buried against his shoulder and his lips resting against the crown of her head.
--
"You think you two can play married without getting your lady feelings involved?"
Chuck somehow manages not to turn a sharp glance at Casey, but keeps his gaze on the blueprints laid out on the Castle table. "Since when has that ever stopped us?" he replies, scratching his ear.
"We'll be fine," Sarah says, reproach in her voice, as she maneuvers around Casey, heading for the vault. Where they keep their rings, their high-end weaponry. Their lesser lives.
And they are fine, somehow. Chuck's jaw tightens a little when Sarah's hand rests a moment too long on the mark's arm, but it's reflex; he can't help it. Her dress is a vivid, rich blue that makes her eyes all the stormier by comparison.
But none of that matters, because they are going to sneak away, tonight.
--
Chip and Lucy Wallace aren't really newlyweds, anymore. So he shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be kicking the door shut, gathering her up into his arms just to brace her hips against the kitchen counter as she chuckles into his mouth. He does it anyway.
"Hello, darling," Chuck says, and his face changes entirely with his grin, from his lips to his eyes. All of him. He is alight.
"Hi, dear," Sarah replies, wrapping her legs around his waist, her skirt riding up above her thighs.
"Hungry?"
"Not in the least," she says, peering at him through her lashes. "Not for food, anyway."
He laughs and leans forward and he's still grinning when he kisses her. It's not in his nature to do something half-measure, and whatever he's feeling is right there on his face for the world to see, and she's never had any doubt about how he feels about her. It's frightening to her, how much she missed that; being Jack Burton's daughter meant never, ever risking what she couldn't afford to lose.
Chuck's hands are sliding her skirt up above her hips, his hands cupping her ass. She swiftly unbuttons the pale cotton shirt "Lucy" wore to work that day and it falls from her wrists to the counter. She laughs as Chuck buries his face against her chest, leaving her to brace on her palms. His lips brush the soft skin between her breasts, his tongue dipping under the fabric between the cups of her bra.
She's waiting for that tiny prickle between her shoulder blades, the sound of the other shoe dropping.
But it doesn't come, and she giggles against Chuck's mouth as he starts to carry her to the bedroom but trips so they land on the couch, together, his long lean body fully against hers, her thighs holding his hips to her.
She forces herself not to wonder how long she can make it last.
--
"Sometimes, Angel Hair, the planets all line up, and you just have to take it."
She'd had her driver's permit for all of two weeks. Her father had his arm stretched along the passenger door. His cheek was bruised. His shirt had been white once, but it was wrinkled from a night spent in lock-up.
Her happiness at seeing him relatively whole was slowly eclipsed by her frustration that she never ever ever had a normal life, not really. Other kids, when they outgrew their winter jackets, didn't learn how to distract the sales clerk while their fathers shoplifted new ones. Other girls didn't wonder if their lunchboxes would hold a sandwich and a candy bar, or maybe a pawn ticket and a hip flask.
She spared him a glance as she pulled to a slow stop at a light. "So where was the glitch?"
Her father shrugged, digging in his pockets for a matchbook. Another lead.
"Sometimes you have to make your own luck."
She shook her head, checking before she pulled into the intersection. Luck was worthless. She made plans for what she wanted, because this wouldn't be her life forever, scamming innocent people out of their money. She hated seeing the cops at their door, because the cops were always right. They didn't go to sleep at night, wondering when it was all going to catch up with them, trying to ignore the guilt away.
"What do you want for lunch?"
"McDonald's." At least there they wouldn't have to do a dine-and-dash.
He tousled her hair and she wrinkled her nose at him. "Only the best for my Angel Hair."
--
"General."
Beckman glanced up from her ubiquitous paperwork, brow furrowed in impatience. Sarah stood facing the screen, in her Orange Orange uniform, hands behind her back. Chuck was safely at home, Casey doing some recon; she was alone, for now.
"Yes, Agent Walker?"
"My orders are to keep Chuck Bartowski safe and emotionally stable so he can continue working with the Intersect project."
Beckman put her pen down and folded her hands slowly. "Yes," she said, her voice a condescending drawl.
"Do I have your permission to interpret that order in any way I find fit?"
"Walker?"
Sarah forced herself to meet the General's hard gaze, through the video screen. "The boundaries of our relationship as defined by the Agency's guidelines hardly seem applicable, given the unusual situation this project has put us in."
"Meaning precisely what?"
"Meaning," Sarah clenched her hands together, "that if you want him to be the best agent he can, I have to seduce him."
Beckman's eyebrows rose almost to her hairline, and her expression somehow darkened even more. "Given your previous behavior, Miss Walker, and the 49B—"
Sarah's hands, already slick with sweat, slipped apart as she tightened her hands into angry fists. "He has feelings for me, General," she snapped out. "Forcing him not to acknowledge that just makes him more emotional."
"Are you sure it's his feelings you're concerned about?" Beckman was almost out of her chair, leaning in, and Sarah instantly parsed it and sorted it. The General was trying to intimidate her. But Sarah had seen her in person, and Sarah knew that, without her, Beckman would be left scrambling for an agent of her caliber who would agree to be stranded in L.A. on a black project for the foreseeable future.
And that alone gave her the spine to say, "If you knew how many times I've stopped myself— General, if you want him in this project, then give him something to invest in. You threw him away. Don't you think that has some bearing on his lack of confidence?"
"His lack of confidence is deserved," Beckman snapped. "If it were up to me—"
The General's face froze. "What," Sarah said slowly, "what exactly would you do, if it were up to you?"
And it crossed Beckman's face, what Sarah already knew. That Chuck would be the Intersect for as long as it took for a real agent to be uploaded. He would never have a chance.
Sarah sat down on the edge of the conference table. "I know for a fact that this is going to make him better. He won't be worried about his relationship with me. He will be dedicated to this project."
"For as long as you're a part of it, you mean."
Sarah raised her eyebrows. "Do we need to go through the CIA liaison over this? Is my status on this project in doubt, General?"
Beckman sighed. "You're not going to let this go, are you."
Sarah shook her head. "If you want him to do a good job, this needs to happen."
"There won't be any more 49Bs."
"There couldn't," she pointed out, "since I'm no longer his handler. And this is going to be on my terms."
Beckman narrowed her eyes. "Don't push it, Walker."
She punched the button, ending the video conference. Sarah let the tension begin to drain out of her, until she was shaking.
Her terms. Her terms or nothing.
By the time she hit the doors of the Orange Orange, she was almost running.
--
They are alone, entirely alone. Their clothes trail from the front door, through the living room, all the way to the bedroom. No candles this time; she almost feels like that jinxes it. No nightgown. Just warm flesh and stiff sheets.
"Chuck," she sighs.
These are her terms:
They are not watched. She's whispered into his ear, in the last five minutes alone, how much she wants him, how much she needs him, how much she loves him, and every word of it has been true. Just like every reverent whisper from his lips, telling her how beautiful she is, how much he's wanted her, how long he's loved her.
And whatever this is, it isn't seduction. There was no convincing. All they needed was a pocket of their lives that wasn't surveilled or questioned or more than half lies.
Another alias just to tell him the truth.
Her fingers have traced all the lines of him, the defined muscle of his shoulders now that they're training together, the heft of his shoulder blades, his abs as they tense under her touch. He kept his gaze on her face as her hand found his erection, traced it, took it in her hand. Waiting for her to judge him.
She is more than pleased with him. His own hands are warm on her breasts, down her sides, against her inner thighs. Given their track record they should be speeding through this, should already be panting in the afterglow, but she can't help it. This is their first time. This will never happen this way again, and besides, the waves of pure longing that ripple through her when he latches onto her nipple, his long fingers buried between her thighs, are too amazing to give up.
She's arched, almost tight against him, when he slides his fingers out of her, and her eyes slowly open. He smiles at her, and almost dives off the bed, groping on the floor for his pants.
"Nightstand," she mumbles, pulling her thighs tight together, and rolls over, pulling the biggest box she could find out of the drawer. They fumble the box open and she rips open a foil wrapper, and they roll the condom onto him together.
"This is really happening, isn't it."
"Better be," she tells him, wrapping her legs around him, her thighs spread wide to take his weight. "If that damn phone rings I'll put a knife through it."
He laughs and lowers himself to her, his hips even with hers, and their gazes lock, leaving them both speechless.
There have been men she rushed through it, not wanting to hear how muted their declarations of love are, not wanting to let herself think about it. Seduction school - that was easy. This is the rest of her life.
He fits himself just inside her and pushes and she arches, gasping as he slides his entire length between her legs, slow, slow and his hips brush her thighs and she buries her fingers in his hair, bracing against the mattress.
"Been a while," he whispers.
"Yeah," she whispers, shifting, and the ache dissolves as he pulls out of her and sinks again. "Deeper," she moans, rotating her hips and she feels texture against her clit, and her muscles tighten against him, her mouth against his neck.
"Do that again—"
It's a warning but she does it anyway, head tilted back, lips curling up as he lets out a soft anguished moan and pushes back out of her. The rhythm of his thrusts starts too fast and only gets faster, her breasts trembling as he drives home, flush to her hips. She pulls her knees up, her nails raking up his back, up to dig into his spine and draw him closer, closer.
"God, Sarah, this is so fucking amazing," he pants out, and when she feels him get close, trembling in the effort of holding himself back, she slides her hand between them and rubs her clit, crying out as her inner flesh ripples and tightens against him, and he comes, shaking, her face against his shoulder.
And the world hasn't ended.
She pulls her hand free and her legs fall loose to the bed, as Chuck groans, not moving.
"I'm never leaving," he says, into the pillow. "Fuck, Sarah."
"Yeah," she whispers, kissing his neck. "I knew you'd be good, but damn."
He moves, then, pulls back to look at her. "I didn't even know if I'd be good."
"It's in the Intersect 2.0," she says, keeping her eyes wide and innocent.
And he curses and laughs, finding all her ticklish places with his long fingers, the sheets rumpled around them. Eventually she kisses him, slow, teases his nipples with her tongue, strokes the hot weight of his shaft before taking him into her mouth and teasing him to a long, incredibly profane orgasm; eventually he rolls her onto her knees and she grips the headboard, panting, her knees sliding wide as he suckles her clit and she fucks his long fingers to another trembling orgasm.
Maybe, eventually, there will be a little house and a patch of yard and a normal life, the kind of life she's never had, the kind of life she's always wanted. But, for now, they will have to drag themselves out of bed in the morning and go back to their lives, back to Chuck and Sarah, who have to wait.
Chip and Lucy Wallace.
It isn't perfect, but it's a start.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-25 01:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-25 05:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-25 05:14 pm (UTC)I do really wish you would continue the AU season 3 though :)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-01 07:45 am (UTC)all her CS fics are over the top :)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-20 03:02 am (UTC)wonderful
Date: 2010-05-10 11:38 pm (UTC)