fic: it's another kind of life [chuck, pg]

[hariboo]

it's another kind of life
chuck
pg | chuck, ensemble | 4k
spoilers/warnings: mostly season one. chuck rule 63.
summary: It may not look like it now, but four years ago Charlotte Irina Bartowski had a plan
n: months and months ago i made a genderswap (rule 63) chuck graphic and then i felt like writing a little bit of it. then the 'hard to say goodbye' comment fiction happened which pushed me to finish. it wasn't originally written for the ficathon so i tweaked it in some bit. (i also still need to xpost the other fic i've written for this commentathon here)



It may not look like it now, but four years ago Charlotte Irina Bartowski had a plan. It was a five year plan and while it was filled with slightly impossible things like: build a lightsaber; marry Nathan Fillion; start a charity, it also had some actual life goals. Simples ones like: pay off student loans; find dad; start my own software company; get El a new car. Nowhere on that list was: living with my brother and working at the the local Buy More.

So really Chuck's aware that her five year plan has been slightly altered. And by slightly she means a lot.

She didn't think anything or anyone could alter her life more, save possibly a Terminator.

Of course, Bryce hasn't just been just anyone to her. And Sam actually looks a Terminator a little bit. Because, you know, he has the build of one. Strong, solid, (great arms), but smiles, so Sam's basically a really hot, nice Terminator, all in all. Or a superhero. Yeah, superhero, like one of the X-men and his special power is being a CIA super spy.

So, yeah, Chuck's had to ditch the marry Nathan Fillion plan, but in Chuck's mind Sam's almost... better.

The Intersect is in a word: intense.

Whenever she flashes she fells like she's hit in the temple by wave of pressure that fluctuates, ebbing and flowing through her mind, as the information burn through her head and all she's left with is too much noise that she just has to babble out or risk an even bigger headache.

Here's when she's extra thankful that she lives with two doctors. The medicine cabinet is always full. Though the other day El asked her if she was okay since he's noticed her slipping the entire bottle of Advil in her bag. Chuck isn't a fan of lying to her brother, and has never been really good at it, but it's not like she can tell him that she's getting massive headaches due to secret government info she got downloaded in her head just like she can't tell him she's defusing bombs with porn viruses. So, she lies. Chuck's never felt she's been a particularly good liar. She feels El can see through her and that his frown is heavier these days, but she still lies. She has to.

El's put up with a lot from her, but she doesn't think her brother would bat an eyelash before calling one of his friends in the psychiatrist wing calling Gamer Breakdown.

El hasn't been the only one to notice though. Sam notices too. Once when they were getting briefed by Beckman. After Beckman signed off and Casey rolled her eyes at Chuck's idea of using the video to set up the arms dealer, they all retreat to their corners in CASTLE. Casey to her guns, Sam to his station and Chuck lounges by the computers -- it's the only place in all of CASTLE where she doesn't feel like she's out of her depth and the quiet hum of the machines calm her -- when Sam walks up to her just as Chuck's bottle of aspirin slips out of her fingers onto the floor.

Sam gets to the bottle first as it rolls across the too clean floor and Chuck can practically see her flush reflected back up her.

His eyes soften as he picks up the bottle, inspects it, and makes his way toward her.

"Chuck, you okay?"

She smiles up at Sam. (For one, she is sitting down on a stool and also Sam is so very very tall. Like tree tall and Chuck thinks too often about how she would have to stand on her tip toes to kiss him.)

"Oh yeah, hunky dory. Just you know, headache." She flashes a too bright grin.

Sam pulls up a stool and sit down across from her. His hands curve around the small plastic container and pries it open with ease, handing it back to her. Their fingers brush and Chuck focuses on shaking two pills out as not to focus on the fact that Sam has really nice fingers.

Man, she is turned on by his fingers, who is she anymore?

She thinks Sam will move away but instead he stays and watches her pop the pills, smirking softly when Chuck dry swallows them.

"Better?"

"Give me ten minutes and I'll be as good as new."

Sam nods. His face pulls like it does, Chuck's learning, when he's thinking about telling her something. Chuck waits a beat and then an other and then--

"Sam?"

He leans forward. His forearm resting on the console just inches aways from Chuck's own. "Look, Chuck, you don't have to act tough for us. If the Intersect is giving you trouble--if it's hurting you, you can tell us. You can tell me. We won't make you do this at the cost of your health."

She's touched. It's impossible not to be when Sam is looking at her with his perfect blue eyes and his hand brushes hers in silent support with his perfect fingers. He's giving her little breathing room, little thinking room, and Chuck at once feels her headache lessen just as the fluttery feeling in her stomach grows.

"I'm okay, Sam. It's just a little headache. Too much info at once. All I need is a little reboot time." She grins and gives Sam a big smile.

Something flickers across Sam's face that Chuck can't decipher, but he smiles, "You're more than a data bank, Chuck."

He stands then and suddenly Sam feels closer than he had been before, which is weird because Chuck's pretty sure he's physically further away. Saying he's going to do some prep for the mission Sam walks away, but not before he squeezes her shoulder gently.

Chuck considers going up to the Buy More and stealing some of Morgan's Tums because her stomach's jumping.

When she thinks about that day that Sam had walked up to her at the Nerd Desk where she and Morgan had been humming the Batman theme tune from the sixties, Chuck remembers thinking:

No way is this guy real. No way this is happening right now. He's got the wrong girl.

She'll never say it to Sam or Casey, or Morgan who think she and Sam are the happiest of couples, but somedays she still thinks that.

They got the wrong girl.

She still remembers how scared she's been on that roof top with Casey pointing a gun at her. Her feet had been aching in the heels Dana had thrust at her thanks to all the running. Sam had told her not to freak out, his hands covering hers, but Chuck had felt her heart stop at the sight of the guns. She had thought about El and how he had kissed her forehead - "You're aces, Charlotte." - and felt it in her bones that those words would be the last her brother would ever speak to her. That Dana would never get her heels back and that Morgan would stay up all night paying Sims waiting for her to come back and tell her all about her date and how Chuck never would be able to tell her friend: I think I went out with a super hero.

But then it all changed and she flashed, her head pounding, and Casey lowered her gun. Sam had pulled her forward and it had all been adrenaline until the beach.

"Trust me, Chuck."

She hadn't wanted too, but Chuck knew:

She already did.

She collapses against Sam and thank god he's build like Norse god because Chuck's sure if it wasn't for him she'd be having a very interesting conversation with the floor. Sam always catches her, she thinks hazily. She doesn't know what they doped her up with, but she's thinking about poisonous darts and Ewoks. Why is she thinking about Ewoks?

"Chuck! Chuck!" She hears Sam calling out to her and she wants to answer. She does. She wants to tell him that it's all good in the hood, but she can't seem to turn her head enough. Her neck feels heavy--can necks feel heavy?

Thankfully Sam seems to pick up on that and shifts her in his arms. Sam's arms are very good. She likes them. She hears as Casey comes up behind them and plucks the dart out of Chuck's neck. She can hear as Casey asks Sam if Chuck's okay, and Chuck thinks it's sweet of Casey to care, but Sam isn't paying attention to Casey at the moment.

His eyes are on hers and it makes Chuck feel kinda special.

His eyes are so very blue, Chuck thinks.

"Chuck? You with me?" His face is so close and she can see his frown lines. She feels his hand against her cheek, tilting her face closer to his. His breath brushes her cheeks.

So very blue. His eyes.

Leia kissed Han when he was all dopey once. She doesn't think Sam was going to kiss her. Shucks.

"Chuck!"

Hey, that rhymes. Her mind laughs.

"Chuck!" Sam says again, looking so worried, and Chuck has to rely on the only muscles in her body that seem to be cooperating with her.

She blinks. Once. Twice. Thrice?

Sam get it because his face breaks out into a relived smile. "You were shot by a dart, but you're okay. It was mild paralysing agent and sedative."

Mild? Right!

Chuck groans and rolls her eyes for good measure.

Sam's smile widens and he wraps his arm more securely around her back for support. "You'll be fine soon." His fingers brush back the strands of hair that fall across her face and when a throat clears he looks away to nod to Casey, presumably, before looking back at her. Chuck really likes his eyes. She wishes her mouth worked so she could tell him that.

"Casey's gone to get the car and we'll head back to CASTLE but you need to try to stay awake." When he looks back her, his face seems more closed off than before but she can't tell what has changed.

Chuck tries to nod, but can only breathe. Then, she remembers, and focuses all her remaining energy on this one word.

"Pocket." It struggles out her throat as if someone's choking her and it ends up sounding more like, "'O-kit." But as soon as it's out she feels her eyes grow heavy and lets her head fall to Sam's shoulder. Speaking is hard.

She can hear Sam calling out her name and question "pocket?" before she feels his hand brush against jacket. His fingers brush against the small plastic container she stuffed in her inner jacket pocket before she had to run out of the building.

It's the component they had come for.

Knowing it's safe in Sam's hand, Chuck lets herself be taken into the dark barely even hearing how Sam keeps shouting her name.

Casey's looks proud of her when she wakes up. Her wolf smile is the closest to warm and friendly that Chuck has ever seen on the woman.

"Not bad, Bartwoski." She pats Chuck too heavy on her shoulder and puffs on her cigar as she leaves CASTLE.

Sam's different story. He stands stiff and protective until they're headed back to the apartment. It's only then when they're at her door Chuck, too tired and cranky from the affects of the dart had, turns to him.

"Geez, Sam, what is it?"

His face betrays nothing and only his lips move. "You need to be more careful, Chuck. You need to listen to me."

Chuck half walks, half stumbles to her room, kicking her Converse off over the threshold. Not for the first time she's glad that the Nerd Herd doesn't make her wear heels. "I know, I know... stay in the car, but I knew I could hack that system and I did. I got the component, didn't I?"

"That's not the point."

Unbuttoning her Nerd Herder white shirt she unthinkingly turns back to Sam. Her camisole underneath is Wonder Woman and completely ironic since Chuck feels just about the opposite. She's too tired to catch how Sam's eyes trail over her collarbone.

"Okay, wrong, yeah it is. The point, I mean." Chuck tosses the shirt to her hamper and sat on her bed, too tired to stand and argue. Sit and argue she could do.

Sam sighs, "Yes, it is, Chuck. You have to listen to me and Casey. It's for your own safety."

That makes her angry. She didn't know exactly why but it does.

"My safety or the Intersect's safety," she spits the words out with a vehemence she hadn't know she felt. Sam's eyes flash. "Because I don't see you giving this speech to Casey and she was in the same building I was. Double-standards are nobody's friends."

Sam moves fast, that's important information to store.

And next thing Chuck knows Sam's kneeling in front of her, looking at her straight on. He tucks a strand of hair that got loose from her ponytail behind her ear.

"Your safety, Chuck," he speak lowly, in such a way that makes Chuck feel too warm inside. "Casey... she's trained to do this work and we're still teaching you. And I know-- we both know the Intersect is important, but believe me when I say this, Chuck. You are more important than the Intersect, okay?"

Chuck doesn't actually think she is, not all the time, but it seems important she agree today.

She swallows. "Yeah, I know. Sorry I snapped."

Sam's face softens and it's another punch in the gut. The curve of his lips is like a bolt of really sexy lightening, and man is she dopey today.

"It's okay, getting tranqed is bound to make anyone edgy." He stands, holding her gaze as he moves so far from her. For second it looks like he was going to say something when he steps back. His jaw works and the look he gives her was impossible to read.

"You slept most of the effects off, but you should still get some rest." He moves to her door and is out before Chuck can even say okay.

When El and Dana get sucked into her crazy life, Chuck reevaluates having the Intersect. El's pale and breathing through a tube and Dana's crying in the bathroom for the first time not looking perfect in Chuck's eyes. It makes her hate her life. It makes her hate Bryce and if it wasn't bad enough with her brother dying Chuck finds herself saying things she doesn't want to say. Always at the wrong time.

"God, you're cut." And watches Sam's jaw work like he wants to say something, but he only smiles.

"Casey, anyone ever tell you look like Starbuck?" ("Who the fuck is Starbuck, Bartowski?")

And then she's standing in front of Sam asking him and god she hates herself for this and hates truth serums even more - they are no longer on her favourite scifi trope list! - but her brain isn't working with a filter and she needs to know. The pull is almost as strong as the serum so she finds herself asking the one question she scared to get an answer too.

"Is there more here? Because sometimes it feels like-I just need to know."

Sam swallows, his eyes are bright. "No, Chuck."

Chuck hates truth serums. She walks away and forces herself not to look back. To just keep walking and get the antidote to El. She misses how Sam looks back her.

That night she goes to apologise with pizza, no olives, and pretends not to hear the truth he whispers.

Then two weeks later Sam kisses her in front of what they think is a bomb and she indeed has to raise herself up on her tiptoes to kiss back. She can still feel the press of his body against hers and how his fingers fisted in her hair. How his shirt felt under her clenched hand and how those last four seconds felt like an eternity.

It hadn't been a bomb though.

It had been her ex-best friend.

Bryce is still as beautiful has she had been in Stanford, and in some ways she hated to admit, she still feels like she's Chuck's best friend. After Morgan, of course. So when Chuck sees her and Sam together she's surprisingly not jealous. Not like she thought she would be. Not the cold angry jealous from the Lifetime movies. She's too much in awe to have that kind of predictable jealously. It's just they're amazing together and they make sense:

Bryce and Sam, Super Spies.

Charlotte Bartowski is nobody's Super Spy.

When Bryce comes to say good-bye for a second Chuck remembers the girl that had her rush Delta Sigma Pi. The girl that played Zork with her and did her nails when they were supposed to studying for exams, but the image fades quickly and with the flip of her sunglasses Bryce is back being someone Chuck doesn't really know anymore. That night in her bed, she thinks Sam will leave Bryce and even as her stomach turns over at the thought of not seeing Sam again she can't help but think: I'd left with Bryce too had she asked.

Bryce is just so much more than Chuck ever thinks she could be. And even when she thinks of the What Ifs over the years she still knows one truth in the pit of her stomach: Bryce Larkin feels like more.

Chuck and Sam, the couple, is a cover. Bryce and Sam, the couple, could be a reality.

When Sam shows up the Winerlicious the next day Chuck wonders why Sam stays for a lie.

She hates that she's happy about it.

"You know, the laderhosen aren't exactly your look. So if you had wanted to, I don't know, switch it up with for a James Bond suit, I wouldn't have held against you." Chuck says, playing with her tie. Sitting on the counter, she lets her converse lightly bounce against the linoleum. She feels the need to say that. To let Sam know that she'd be okay with Casey watching her back even if Casey with her hundred guns still scares the shit out of Chuck. She also needs him to get that she understands what Bryce means, because she means something to Chuck too, and she'd seen it in the way Bryce had looked at Sam: they hadn't just been partners.

It makes perfect sense too because Chuck's had Sam smile at her and if makes her stomach feel like a bottle of sunshine had been dropped into it then Bryce surely had felt it too. Bryce though, probably hadn't fumbled a phone when first seeing Sam smile though. Bryce will forever be much cooler like that. It's something Chuck's learning to live with.

Sam turns from where he's trying not burn his third batch of fries and smiles the sexy lightening blot smile at Chuck.

"Trying to get rid of me, Chuck?"

"Never," Chuck feels she says too softly so she amps up her grin and shakes her head, "Without you around I'd only have Casey and I still think some days she's trying to kill me."

Sam moves and Chuck feels her stomach tighten when she realises she just has to let her knees fall open and she can pull him in between--

Woah, bad thought. Chuck cuts herself off and picks at the corndog she's been munching on.

"Anyway, El and Dev mentioned a movie night tonight and you're to make an appearance. I was told to tell you to bring wine."

Sam grins at her over his shoulder. "No problem. Seven?"

"Sure."

"And Chuck?"

"Hmm?" she mumbles around a bit of deep fried goodness.

"I think I should spend the night again. Last time got… complicated."

Thank god Sam's right there because her throat closes up on her and she almost pitches forward from her perch. She grabs at the cup he hands to her and takes a long sip from the straw, still partly coughing. Sam's hand curves at the small of her back and shoulder, holding her steady.

Chuck coughs once more and looks up.

"What?"

Sam shifts, his hands feel heavy and kinda perfect. "Can't be that horrible of a thought there, Chuck. We've done it before." Chuck coughs again. "Unless you're uncomfortable and then you can come to the hotel."

She reaches for the drink and takes a long and deep sip.

"No, no, that's... uh. Well, maybe? Let's play it by ear because El is pretty cool with you, but I still thinks that he thinks I'm a virgin and well, okay you did come over the other night but it did get complicated and I don't think El remembers much, thank god, about the whole thing. And it's not like he doesn't know I'm not, but I don't think he wants the proof of it there in the morning. I mean John was like ages ago and I was in college and El was like miles away not you know, next room over." That's about when she notices the look on Sam's face and closes her eyes, because yeah, she just said all of that and she needs to die now.

"So, hotel might be a good plan this time around," she mumbles and hops off the counter. Her shoes squeak on the floor when she spins at the door. "But dinner, tonight at seven."

Sam nods and she bolts out the door pulling her cell out as she heads back to the Buy More.

When Morgan picks up, Chuck babbles out, "Code: Victoria's Secret! ASAP!" Because the last time she had only worn her boy shorts and a tank top and well-look, it's not like she has much in her lingerie repertoire. She needs new stuff, preferably without the Wonder Woman logo. Morgan's eep of surprise and the following sounds of Code: Victoria Secret being yelled though the Buy More has Chuck already regretting her decision. The minute she steps inside she's flanked by Morgan, Jess and Leslie and yeah. Worst decision ever.

In the end it doesn't even matter that Jess and Leslie almost get the thrown out of Victoria's Secret and Chuck blushes her way through Fredrick's of Hollywood mostly because Leslie starts talking about something called a Viennese Oyster and Chuck needs to get out of there, fast, because she ends up getting thrown of a hotel room with Casey and yeah. So who would have thought that Casey once had an illicit love affair with a Russian arms' dealer, but hey, to each their own. She doesn't mention that the guy, Igao, looks a lot like Apollo from Battlestar Galactica which actually helps her understand the appeal.

She does end up spending the night at Sam's hotel room, because it's easier than going home, and he lets her order sizzling shrimp as she sits on his bed dressed in her Wonder Woman boy shorts and her old Stanford t-shirt while they watch old episodes of Nick at Nite because Sam's worried - she did fall out of a window into a conveniently placed pool - and Chuck's learning that when he worries he doesn't like her to be out of her sight. El had grumbled over the phone when they cancelled movie night but Dana had stolen the phone and told Chuck to have fun, not to worry, and that they'd do some other time. Dana is awesome like that.

Chuck ends up falling asleep in the middle of Bewitched. Her pillow smells a lot like Sam. She sighs.

When Dana proposes to El, because Dana is also pretty progressive like that, Chuck stands outside her shared apartment watching as her brother laughs and picks up his now fiancée and spins her in his arms. It's righter there in that second after everything that's happened that the knot in her stomach unravels and Chuck exhales in relief. She almost lost them. It's still hard to swallow.

"Chuck," she hears Sam say behind her.

Chuck turns. "I'm happy El has Dana because now at least I know he won't be alone if they ever do get me."

Sam's hand curves over her shoulder. Chuck meets his eyes. "I'll never let them get you, Chuck."

"You can't promise that."

Sam's fingers touch her hair. "I am."

Chuck forces a smile. "Thanks."

"You should go in."

"You should come in."

Sam's eyes soften and he drops his hand from her hair. He looks to the window where El cupping Dana's face and kissing her. "It's a family moment, Chuck."

"I know," she says.

They go in.