Fic: Whoever You Are (Chuck/Awesome, PG)- Can be read as Gen but Slash in later parts
Title: Whoever You Are
Fandom: Chuck
Characters/Pairings: Chuck/Awesome
Rating: PG
Warning: Not much. This is preslash but can be read as gen.
Summary: Devon never thought there'd come a day when anything about Chuck would scare him.
Word: 2,307
Spoiler: Season 3 episodes 3, 4 and 6
Disclaimer: Again, i own absolutely nothing.
A/N: Finally beta-read!! Thank you so much ellenscult ( the_proofreader )
Whoever You Are
By Hollywood Recycle Bin
This wasn’t him. Devon thought, no, in fact he knew this wasn’t him. The person who’d been lying in front of the TV, terrified of his own shadow for the past week, that coach potato right there was definitely not Dr. Devon Woodcomb. There must be some sort of alien taking over his brain, or (more likely considering his current situation) some sort of government chip installed into it to make him less awesome or something because this was definitely not Dr. Devon Woodcomb.
Because Dr. Devon Woodcomb wasn’t like this. The Dr. Devon Woodcomb he knew loved life, and loved adventure and took every challenge head on with a winner’s attitude. He didn’t look back. He didn’t do this. This freaking out over everything and hiding all the time. It was starting to get embarrassing and ridiculous and his wife was beginning to look at him like he was a crazy person!
He was also pretty sure the Dr. Devon Woodcomb he knew also didn’t talk/think about himself in the third person so much. Also another sign that his wife was right, and he was going crazy.
Man, this whole secrets and lies thing was really really not working out for him!
Seemed to be working out all right for Chuck though.
Chuck. That’s who it all came down to now, wasn’t it? His whole life, everything changing and Chuck was right at the center of it all.
Chuck Bartowski; with his (seemingly) gangly body, and his big goofy grin and his Tron poster and action figures; Chuck, who was Ellie’s smart but underachieving little brother. He’d lived with the guy for years; Chuck was like another brother to him, one whose hair he could always ruffle (his other brothers, like him, unfortunately had shorter hair) and who’d sometimes pretend to protest when he tried to hug him, but really didn’t, unless he hugged him too hard and he was suffocating, but anyway that’s not the point.
The point is that if someone had asked him seven or eight months ago if he knew Chuck well, then yes, he would have said that he knew Chuck pretty well. Obviously not as well as Ellie or (god forbid) Morgan, but still, he thought he knew Chuck. Knew the person he was.
And even after he found out The Secret, he still thought he knew Chuck pretty well. The whole thing was a bit of a shock, sure, but even then Devon still only saw Chuck as Chuck. Just maybe with a layer of Awesome added to him.
It didn’t really occur to him then what being a spy actually entailed. What it would take for someone to become one and what they’d have to give up.
When he’d asked Chuck, that first time, to involve him in one of his missions, he didn’t really think too much about it. In fact, if he was honest with himself, he’d actually thought, hey! If Chuck can do it, why can’t I? Because, even though he knew Chuck was awesome, and a secret agent, he hadn’t witnessed Chuck in action before, and it was really hard to reconcile the image of Chuck Bartowski, Ellie’s awkward geeky little brother who worked at the Buy More, with Chuck Bartowski, CIA agent.
He knew now how wrong he’d been of course, because Chuck Bartowski, CIA agent, wasn’t anything like the Chuck Bartowski who worked at the Buy More. Wasn’t like the Chuck Bartowski he’d known for nearly a decade. They were similar but at the same time so completely different.
And even after his second mission it still didn’t really hit him what it meant for Chuck to be a spy. After all, Chuck had been awesome then. He'd saved Devon’s life, taken care of him. He’d practically held his hand throughout the entire mission and when he was freaking out and scared, Chuck took care of it all the same way he helped take care of everything at home with Ellie or Morgan. Devon had never thought there’d come a day when he’d look at Chuck and see his own personal superhero, and he thought he might have understood then at least a little of why Morgan was so attached to Chuck.
It wasn’t until this afternoon that the picture had become clearer to him, what it really meant to be a spy.
“Please, Ellie! Brother, Sister. There are no secrets between us.”
There was a smile on his face when Chuck said it. Devon was still hiding so he couldn’t see that clearly, but he could still see that same crinkle near his eyes, the same goofy grin and the tone in his voice, the way he uttered the words, as if it was the most obvious and true thing in the world. He lied so convincingly that he even had Ellie apologizing for being paranoid and not trusting him.
It occurred to Devon why Chuck made such an effective agent. Even that Sydney woman didn’t suspect him of being the spy in the family. After all who would suspect that anyone who could smile like that was anything other than exactly what he seemed? Even Devon had trouble believing it and he'd seen it with his own eyes.
Chuck was a good liar. A really great liar. And in the same way it didn’t occur to Devon what spying entailed, it also didn’t occur to Devon just how good a liar Chuck really was until he was face to face with it. Now though, it really hit him. Chuck had been lying to everyone for years. To him, to Ellie, to Morgan! All the people who would swear that they knew everything there was to know about Chuck Bartowski. They had never suspected a thing. And if it hadn’t been for Jeff and Lester, Devon wouldn’t have suspected a thing either. Chuck would have just kept on lying, and no one would have known any differently.
He wouldn’t have known any differently.
After the whole mess with the Premier, Devon had told Chuck that if having a double life meant that he’d have to give up half his real life; then it wasn’t for him. Now he thought it might be worse than that. Maybe having a double life didn’t mean you have to give up half your ‘real’ life, maybe it meant that what you thought was your real life slowly became unreal. The life that you shared with your friends and your family, that became the cover. The lie.
It was the most horrifying thought Devon had ever had, and he wondered what that meant for Chuck. Wondered who Chuck really was. The person he'd known for nearly 9 years, the one he’d been living with, was that one a lie? Was the real Chuck the one he'd seen a glimpse of just this afternoon? The one who lied so smoothly and without regret, face set grim but determined as he said afterwards, “there are some things she’s better off not knowing.”
Devon had always thought it’d be a cold day in hell before anything in Chuck’s life scared him (creepy co-workers excluded). They called him ‘Captain Awesome’ after all and normally nothing fazed him. He was all about the adrenaline rush and jumping into everything with both feet. But then life wasn’t normal any more.
Chuck terrified him now. Devon had only lied to Ellie a handful of times since he found out Chuck’s secret and already it was eating at him. The lies felt so big, even bigger than the secret missions and guns and having someone threatening to blow his head off. The lies felt like they were eating away at him, eating away who he was, filling him up with something that shouldn’t be there and he so desperately wanted to let it out of him, but he couldn’t, even if it felt like he was about to burst and explode.
But this feeling, this guilt and nervousness, it was better somehow, better than what Chuck did. Chuck said lying got easier, but Devon didn’t want that. He didn’t want to have to wake up every morning and lie to every single person he’d ever loved for the rest of his life.
He didn’t want to be Chuck.
Except he didn’t have that choice any more, did he? That choice had been taken away from him the moment he'd broken into Casey’s apartment. In that moment, he had killed the life he knew, the life he loved, and he hadn’t even known it.
He felt the urge to curl up and cry. He hadn’t done that since he was six.
He didn’t though. Instead, after walking around with the plane tickets in his hands for what he thought might be an obscene amount of time; he finally got up the nerve and the calm to open the front door and walk in.
It was dark when he entered and he briefly thought it was too late and everyone had gone to sleep but then he saw Chuck sitting at the dining room table, a nearly empty bottle of Johnny Walker as his only company. Only one light was turned on and it cast dim shadows across Chuck’s face, making him look older and vaguely sinister with his head bent down.
The sinister look was gone when Devon got closer, nothing but a play of light painting Chuck’s delicate features. Chuck still looked older though; even without the shadows there were still bags under his eyes and his shoulders were hunched over the now empty glass.
After a long still moment, Chuck looked up at him, and Devon could see how weary he was, tired and older than he’d ever seen him but at the same time young and lost and uncertain. And in that moment, Devon was sure that he finally saw Chuck. Not Chuck the secret agent, or Chuck the loser, or even Chuck his superhero.
Just Chuck.
Chuck who was his bro.
And maybe he wasn't exactly the goofy, geeky, underachiever he'd always knew and loved, or the superhero who could protect him, but it was still Chuck (his Chuck) and Chuck was clearly hurting.
Devon felt a tug at his heart. He’d been so paranoid and freaked out over everything and while he knew he wasn't always the most observant person around, he still had no idea how he'd missed this.
Chuck held it all together on their previous missions, but it was only by a thread, and it was all for Devon’s benefit. Devon had always known that what Chuck did, he did to protect them. He didn’t want their life to change, didn’t want them to end up in witness protection and forced to turn their whole life upside down because of him.
What he didn’t know was just how freaked out Chuck himself was.
He wasn’t freaked out in that jumping at every shadow way that Devon did. Instead it was a long slow burn, full of resignation and at the same time fear. It was the kind of freaking out a person did when they looked in the mirror and realized they were't sure who they were anymore, and didn’t like who they were becoming.
“Rough day at the office?” Devon asked finally, concern taking priority over his own fears as he sat down next to him.
Chuck gave him a familiar look that said ‘you have no idea’, but he didn’t elaborate. Instead he moved to pour himself another drink.
Devon caught the back of Chuck’s hand in his before he could, stopping him, but gently. There was a light layer of dark hair there, tickling him as he laced his fingers with Chuck’s. His hands were as warm as someone like him should be and Devon gave it a light squeeze as he looked into wide brown eyes.
Chuck’s eyes were so much like Ellie’s. The same naturally curled eyelashes, the same softness around the edges. It hurt Devon to see so much pain in them and he tried his best to tell Chuck everything he was feeling with his eyes and his touch. There was so much he wanted to say to his brother-in-law, now, but he couldn’t find the words. Something about the air of the room, something in the silence, too thick to break, but even without words he tried to tell Chuck what he should have told Chuck a long time ago.
You’re not alone. Not anymore.
Because he had a piece of Chuck with him now, a piece of the puzzle that no one else had, not Ellie, not Morgan, not even Sarah who was too much a part of The Secret to help carry the burden. And sure, it was a pretty big burden, with a million strings attached to it but still... Chuck was his bro and Chuck needed him. Chuck needed him to be strong; he needed him to help hold it all together because even if he was good at it, one person couldn't hold everything together like that all the time without going crazy.
Devon might not be able to list all 31 of Chuck’s favourite ice cream flavours in descending order, and he might never know when Chuck had learnt how to knock out six armed security guards in less than a minute, but he knew this; right now, out of everyone, he’s the one that knows Chuck the most; the rope that ties Chuck the spy with Chuck the brother and Chuck the friend.
The only person in Chuck’s real life who knew about Chuck’s other life.
And that was exactly how it was going to remain. Chuck the brother and Chuck the friend was never going to become a lie or a cover. This life Chuck shared with him and his sister was never going to become unreal.
Not on Dr. Devon Woodcomb’s watch.
END
Sequel here