Fic: The Curse of the Chinese - Chuck, Chuck/Bryce, AU, PG
Title: The Curse of the Chinese
Fandom: Chuck
Pairing: Chuck/Bryce UST
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2.5k/13k so far in the series
Author's Notes: This is an installment in my ongoing AU series and in this world, all worlds. You don't have to have read the other installments to read this one, provided you understand that the series is based on the premise 'What if Sarah were Chuck's geeky friend in college and Bryce were assigned to protect the Intersect?' This installment takes place in a AU Chuck vs. the Wookie. It is part VII in my series, if you're keeping up, posted alone because it's a little lengthy and not based on any new prompt as the other parts were.
Summary: Before, Bryce wouldn’t have defined purgatory as a night spent getting pawed on and cooed at by Carina, while simultaneously watching John Casey charm Chuck and his family, but now- Well. Bryce stands corrected.
Previous Parts in this Series:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
It still amazes him how badly a day can go (and how quickly it can go bad) even now that bad has taken on a new meaning for Chuck. Bad used to mean CPR re-certification day at the BuyMore or that Morgan had been buying fireworks again, or that Chuck’s recent failed attempt at romance P.J. (post-Jay) had failed. Again.
Bad now means that the plutonium-stealing arms dealer that tried to toss Chuck off a balcony the other day tracked him back to Burbank. Bad means Chuck’s spent the day fearing for his life - either in spite of the highly-trained, highly dangerous government agents assigned to protect him… or because of them.
Bad means Chuck gets back from an early- early morning sparring session at Bryce’s, showers, shaves, and steps out his front door to find an undercover DEA agent standing in his courtyard. And that wasn’t even the kick off for the “bad” part of this particular bad day that Chuck is having. The bad part began when Chuck learned what “Carina’s” cover would be for the short time that she’s in California on a mission. Things have gotten steadily worse from there.
“I thought you said you weren’t dating John Casey,” Ellie tries to whisper over Morgan making a fool of himself in the other room while still being heard. She dragged Chuck into the kitchen under the guise of readying dinner for all of their guests, but Chuck knows she wants desperately to interrogate him instead.
Considering who he brought to game night this time around, Chuck supposes that’s fair.
“I did and I wasn’t,” Chuck says, then sees the way Ellie is looking at him and quickly clarifies. “I’m not. I just-”
Chuck struggles to explain how what should have been another half-way tense yet still enjoyable evening at home with his friends and family and his pretend friend/wanna-be-boyfriend turned into him and Bryce and John Casey and some spy he never even met before today playing a party game with Chuck’s nearest and dearest. Chuck’s having a hard enough time making sense of things himself, and that’s without having to censure out any information involving spy stuff.
After a brief introduction to Carina this morning, followed by everyone from Bryce to Casey to General Beckman and Director Graham saying that Carina shouldn’t be trusted being left alone with Chuck, Carina showed up in the BuyMore eager to chat. Bryce showed up almost immediately afterward, looking harsh in that way that Chuck’s learned means he’s not necessarily angry, just concerned. And things got really complicated. Morgan started hitting on Carina. Carina said she’s in town “with Bryce” (as part of her cover, as a reason for what she’s doing in Burbank, or to back Morgan off; at least that’s what Chuck hopes is going on.)
“We’re just gonna hang out and catch up-” Bryce began, giving Carina looks that always say ‘Stay in the car!‘ when he shoots them at Chuck, but were probably saying something like ‘Let’s go now!‘ to Carina.
“You could come too,” Carina offered, grinning in a way Chuck couldn’t imagine being good. “I’d love to get to know Bryce’s new… friend.”
“Uh-” Chuck was still stuck on Carina being “with Bryce”. Or pretending to be with Bryce? Just last week, Bryce admitted to being with Sarah when they were partners. And Carina was being very hands-on with Bryce… linking their arms together and hanging off his shoulder. She’s a very beautiful woman and-
But Morgan intervened. “Dude, tonight’s game night at Casa Bartowski. Nobody’s ever blown off one of Ellie’s game nights.”
“Oh, I love games!” Carina cooed immediately. “Do you think Ellie would mind if Bryce brought a guest?” She either completely missed or completely didn’t care about the death looks Bryce was giving her. “What do you say, honey? Sounds like fun, right?”
“Carina showed up all… touchy-feely with Bryce and I panicked,” Chuck says now, as close to being honest as he can get. Chuck gave in to a split-second, next-to-senseless urge to stop Carina from going off alone with Bryce and said it’d be great if Bryce brought her along to game night. Bryce looked at Chuck like he’d lost his mind, and Chuck can’t blame him. Later, when Casey confronted Chuck about what he and Bryce and Carina were talking about, Chuck felt even crazier. He thought of spending the evening watching Carina and her hands being “with Bryce” and pretending not to be bothered more than he’s given Bryce reason to believe he would be, for Bryce, while pretending that he’s exactly that bothered but hiding it for reasons besides needing to play nice with the undercover DEA agent for Ellie and Morgan and Awesome.
Then Chuck invited Casey. And, craziest thing of all, Casey accepted his invitation.
Casey’s sitting now, on Ellie’s couch, on the other side of Devon as Ellie’s seat. Morgan’s sitting on the floor while Bryce and Carina sit in the loveseat. That leaves Chuck to sit next to Morgan or perch on the arm of the couch nearest Casey, pretending that he and the other man aren’t unfamiliar with being so close when (A) bullets aren’t flying or cars exploding and (B) Casey isn’t frowning and growling like someone’s pulling his teeth. Casey’s even smiled three times tonight - at Chuck.
‘Crazy’ is definitely the word for Chuck this evening, even if it is kinda nice not to have the big guy snarking at everything Chuck says for once in their acquaintance.
“Yeah, about that,” Ellie says, looking disproportionately disturbed by their topic of conversation. “Chuck, what happened? I know I told you to tell Bryce how you feel-”
And Chuck did. Sorta. He told Bryce he’d like it if they were really friends, anyhow, and that’s something even if it’s not the full truth that Chuck would really like it if they were more than that. He doesn’t think that confession would go over quite so well.
“-and things seemed to be going so well…” Ellie continues. “But now suddenly he has a girlfriend and you’ve invited John over again-”
Chuck can just imagine how it all looks. Things have been going well, too. Ever since the La Ciudad mission, Chuck’s been training with either Bryce or Casey. Mostly Bryce, in Bryce’s suite after Chuck’s shift at the BuyMore or - like today - early in the morning when they know that they have spy stuff to do later.
Normally, Chuck wouldn’t be a fan of all the physical exertion this entails, but there are worse things than getting up close and personal with Bryce Larkin dressed in a sleeveless shirt and track pants. Chuck and Bryce’s “sparring” sessions (not that they “spar” so much yet; mostly Chuck’s learning things like how to keep someone from grabbing him, how to break free once someone has, and how to free himself when he’s been tied to a chair… again) mean Chuck gets to spend twice as much time with Bryce. They’ve even got to talking about some of the questions that came up the last time they played Ellie’s game. He was looking forward to winning, this time, with Bryce.
Chuck’s still winning, actually, but it’s a little unsettling that he’s winning with John Casey. Casey seems to know Chuck frighteningly well, and though Chuck’s guessed ninety-five percent of the time when it’s been his turn, his answers have somehow always been right. Chuck would give good money to know how Casey is doing it.
“Chuck… Are you and Bryce-”
“Need a hand in there, babe?” Devon interrupts whatever Ellie had been about to ask, and Chuck is a little confused by how quickly she drops the subject. There is literally nothing more personal than some of the personal things that they’ve discussed in front of Devon or with him directly. Devon is… extremely comfortable around his girlfriend and her little brother. Uncomfortably comfortable, Chuck would sometimes say. It was little over a week ago that Devon greeted Chuck in the living room completely naked. Then proceeded to teach Chuck how to tango (though, to be fair, he had put on some underwear by that point.)
Whatever the reason, Chuck’s glad to put the talking to rest and go into the dining room… For more talking. But as part of a group who (so long as nobody gives Morgan any unfortunate ideas) won’t be questioning Chuck’s romantic notions about any other members of the group. Chuck crosses his fingers, grabs the breadsticks to carry to the dinner table, and hopes the night proceeds (if not better than, then) less peculiarly than the day.
Bryce isn’t fond of melodrama. In his career, he’s learned the power of understatement. All the same, he’s sure he would probably sound melodramatic if he compared Bartowski Game Night Version 2.0 (the Carina Edition) to this op in Saigon that went sideways on him a few years ago. He considers the comparison pretty apt, though. He wouldn’t have defined purgatory as a night spent getting pawed on and cooed at by Carina, while simultaneously watching John Casey charm Chuck and his family, before, but now- Well. Bryce stands corrected.
It’s not that he dislikes Carina. In principle. She’s a good agent. Handy to have around in a firefight. But she’s also a troublemaker. She was Sarah’s friend more than Bryce’s and they disagreed at times as to what degree of liability Carina’s troublemaking presented to their work. She’s absolutely not trustworthy - not with Chuck. Not with anything that could advance her career, really, and the knowledge that a human Intersect exists? Yeah. That’d do the trick.
Bryce would have said anything to get her away from Chuck when she barged into the BuyMore this morning, determined on having a one-on-one, but somehow all he managed to do was give her an excuse to get closer to him. Bryce was supposed to keep Carina away from the Intersect. Not introduce her to his entire family.
So he’s a little cranky about that. He doesn’t think he’s overstating things to say that tonight was a disaster. He failed to keep Carina away from Chuck, he somehow managed to convince Casey that he’s trying to keep him “out of the loop” again, Chuck doesn’t seem too happy with him this evening, and Ellie’s been glaring daggers at him for unknown reasons (besides the obvious; it’s never a good idea to bring a date into the home of the woman who’s trying to set you up with her brother.)
Also, Casey was friendly and charming all evening. Casey. Bryce swears that the fourth time Casey smiled at Chuck, Chuck blushed. It was unnatural.
“It was a wonderful evening. Thank you so much for letting me tag along,” Carina tells Ellie as they leave.
Ellie is as polite and kind as ever… at least when her eyes aren’t directed at Bryce. She’s smiling, though, when they walk to the door and she looks at him and says, “Any time,” in a really cheerful tone of voice. Her eyes say, ‘Don’t even think about it.‘ Bryce nods.
Carina keeps her arm linked with his as they walk through the courtyard, away from the Bartowskis’, but at least she drops the saccharine tone of voice she’d adopted for their “date”. Before Bryce can say anything she says, “Well, that was quite the show. I didn’t think Johnny had it in him.”
“What?” Bryce’s train of thought derailed.
“To work a boyfriend and boyfriend cover with your analyst. I would have thought they’d give that one to you. You and Sarah always had similar tastes. Don’t you still like your men tall, dark and h-”
Bryce stops Carina there. There are a number of things he doesn’t like about her statement. For one thing, he doesn’t need to be told a second time in as many weeks which way to handle his asset. A good cover develops organically, the way his relationship with Chuck has been progressing. For another, Bryce sure as hell doesn’t need Carina speculating about his taste in men. But most importantly… “Casey’s not Chuck’s boyfriend.”
Casey’s not the type for “Roan Montgomery-ing”, as he calls it; not as anything but a last resort, Bryce would imagine, and probably never with a male asset. And besides that… No. Just no.
“Could have fooled me,” Carina says, raising a brow. “And that’s the point of a cover, isn’t it? To fool everybody. Unless that’s why you weren’t the one giving Chuck the couple treatment back there. Maybe it’s not your cover you want coupling with Chuck.”
Bryce stops, turning to Carina. He sees it now, in the tension around her eyes, the set of her lips. Maybe he should have expected this somehow, but it’s hard to predict anything about Carina. She was probably Sarah’s closest friend, but that never meant the same thing twice. One day it meant Carina was repelling into a knife fight in Columbia just to have Sarah’s back; the next it meant she had nearly gotten them all killed in Panama while scooping the payoff of a big mission right out from under them.
“You were the one who gave them the impression that you’re here in Burbank for me.”
“I was trying to build a cover of my own,” Carina says, but her voice is hard and her eyes haven’t softened either.
“I know what you were trying to do,” Bryce responds, putting a firmness in his tone to match Carina’s. “And we’re not going there. You could have compromised my cover tonight, and I have to be here for a lot longer than one mission.”
Nothing in Carina will ever resemble an emotion nearing contrite, but she does look less ready to lash out at Bryce at any moment when she says, “I’m just saying. It seems a little fast to be getting back on the horse if you ask me.”
Bryce couldn’t comment on that if he wanted to, and he doesn’t. He doesn’t point out that he didn’t ask Carina, though, either. “I’m here for a job, Carina,” he tells her instead.
She stares at him for a long moment. ‘Hard to predict.’ Actually, that sums up everything about Carina, to a tee. When the tension finally leaves her face every other trace of their preceding conversation leaves with it. Carina smiles, wicked and happy to be.
“It would be hot though, right?” she asks. “Casey and your computer geek? Did you see the way the kid blushed whenever John smiled at him? Oh, Johnny’d own him between the sheets.”
Had Bryce really thought that he doesn’t dislike Carina? Sometimes he’s pretty sure he hates her. Completely.
“Get your head out of the gutter,” Bryce says. “We’ve got a diamond to steal. Meet us at Casey’s tomorrow at three.”
“Sure thing.”
Bryce isn’t sure… about any of this. Carina was the most unpredictable person Bryce knew before he met Chuck Bartowski. Putting them together on a diamond heist should be interesting.
And everyone knows what the Chinese say about times being interesting. It’s a curse.
Bryce drives back to his hotel resisting the urge to check the GPS they put in Chuck’s watch every few moments. Another thing he’s heard the Chinese say about curses is that they often come in threes.
[end.]
AO3
Sequel
Fandom: Chuck
Pairing: Chuck/Bryce UST
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2.5k/13k so far in the series
Author's Notes: This is an installment in my ongoing AU series and in this world, all worlds. You don't have to have read the other installments to read this one, provided you understand that the series is based on the premise 'What if Sarah were Chuck's geeky friend in college and Bryce were assigned to protect the Intersect?' This installment takes place in a AU Chuck vs. the Wookie. It is part VII in my series, if you're keeping up, posted alone because it's a little lengthy and not based on any new prompt as the other parts were.
Summary: Before, Bryce wouldn’t have defined purgatory as a night spent getting pawed on and cooed at by Carina, while simultaneously watching John Casey charm Chuck and his family, but now- Well. Bryce stands corrected.
Previous Parts in this Series:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
It still amazes him how badly a day can go (and how quickly it can go bad) even now that bad has taken on a new meaning for Chuck. Bad used to mean CPR re-certification day at the BuyMore or that Morgan had been buying fireworks again, or that Chuck’s recent failed attempt at romance P.J. (post-Jay) had failed. Again.
Bad now means that the plutonium-stealing arms dealer that tried to toss Chuck off a balcony the other day tracked him back to Burbank. Bad means Chuck’s spent the day fearing for his life - either in spite of the highly-trained, highly dangerous government agents assigned to protect him… or because of them.
Bad means Chuck gets back from an early- early morning sparring session at Bryce’s, showers, shaves, and steps out his front door to find an undercover DEA agent standing in his courtyard. And that wasn’t even the kick off for the “bad” part of this particular bad day that Chuck is having. The bad part began when Chuck learned what “Carina’s” cover would be for the short time that she’s in California on a mission. Things have gotten steadily worse from there.
“I thought you said you weren’t dating John Casey,” Ellie tries to whisper over Morgan making a fool of himself in the other room while still being heard. She dragged Chuck into the kitchen under the guise of readying dinner for all of their guests, but Chuck knows she wants desperately to interrogate him instead.
Considering who he brought to game night this time around, Chuck supposes that’s fair.
“I did and I wasn’t,” Chuck says, then sees the way Ellie is looking at him and quickly clarifies. “I’m not. I just-”
Chuck struggles to explain how what should have been another half-way tense yet still enjoyable evening at home with his friends and family and his pretend friend/wanna-be-boyfriend turned into him and Bryce and John Casey and some spy he never even met before today playing a party game with Chuck’s nearest and dearest. Chuck’s having a hard enough time making sense of things himself, and that’s without having to censure out any information involving spy stuff.
After a brief introduction to Carina this morning, followed by everyone from Bryce to Casey to General Beckman and Director Graham saying that Carina shouldn’t be trusted being left alone with Chuck, Carina showed up in the BuyMore eager to chat. Bryce showed up almost immediately afterward, looking harsh in that way that Chuck’s learned means he’s not necessarily angry, just concerned. And things got really complicated. Morgan started hitting on Carina. Carina said she’s in town “with Bryce” (as part of her cover, as a reason for what she’s doing in Burbank, or to back Morgan off; at least that’s what Chuck hopes is going on.)
“We’re just gonna hang out and catch up-” Bryce began, giving Carina looks that always say ‘Stay in the car!‘ when he shoots them at Chuck, but were probably saying something like ‘Let’s go now!‘ to Carina.
“You could come too,” Carina offered, grinning in a way Chuck couldn’t imagine being good. “I’d love to get to know Bryce’s new… friend.”
“Uh-” Chuck was still stuck on Carina being “with Bryce”. Or pretending to be with Bryce? Just last week, Bryce admitted to being with Sarah when they were partners. And Carina was being very hands-on with Bryce… linking their arms together and hanging off his shoulder. She’s a very beautiful woman and-
But Morgan intervened. “Dude, tonight’s game night at Casa Bartowski. Nobody’s ever blown off one of Ellie’s game nights.”
“Oh, I love games!” Carina cooed immediately. “Do you think Ellie would mind if Bryce brought a guest?” She either completely missed or completely didn’t care about the death looks Bryce was giving her. “What do you say, honey? Sounds like fun, right?”
“Carina showed up all… touchy-feely with Bryce and I panicked,” Chuck says now, as close to being honest as he can get. Chuck gave in to a split-second, next-to-senseless urge to stop Carina from going off alone with Bryce and said it’d be great if Bryce brought her along to game night. Bryce looked at Chuck like he’d lost his mind, and Chuck can’t blame him. Later, when Casey confronted Chuck about what he and Bryce and Carina were talking about, Chuck felt even crazier. He thought of spending the evening watching Carina and her hands being “with Bryce” and pretending not to be bothered more than he’s given Bryce reason to believe he would be, for Bryce, while pretending that he’s exactly that bothered but hiding it for reasons besides needing to play nice with the undercover DEA agent for Ellie and Morgan and Awesome.
Then Chuck invited Casey. And, craziest thing of all, Casey accepted his invitation.
Casey’s sitting now, on Ellie’s couch, on the other side of Devon as Ellie’s seat. Morgan’s sitting on the floor while Bryce and Carina sit in the loveseat. That leaves Chuck to sit next to Morgan or perch on the arm of the couch nearest Casey, pretending that he and the other man aren’t unfamiliar with being so close when (A) bullets aren’t flying or cars exploding and (B) Casey isn’t frowning and growling like someone’s pulling his teeth. Casey’s even smiled three times tonight - at Chuck.
‘Crazy’ is definitely the word for Chuck this evening, even if it is kinda nice not to have the big guy snarking at everything Chuck says for once in their acquaintance.
“Yeah, about that,” Ellie says, looking disproportionately disturbed by their topic of conversation. “Chuck, what happened? I know I told you to tell Bryce how you feel-”
And Chuck did. Sorta. He told Bryce he’d like it if they were really friends, anyhow, and that’s something even if it’s not the full truth that Chuck would really like it if they were more than that. He doesn’t think that confession would go over quite so well.
“-and things seemed to be going so well…” Ellie continues. “But now suddenly he has a girlfriend and you’ve invited John over again-”
Chuck can just imagine how it all looks. Things have been going well, too. Ever since the La Ciudad mission, Chuck’s been training with either Bryce or Casey. Mostly Bryce, in Bryce’s suite after Chuck’s shift at the BuyMore or - like today - early in the morning when they know that they have spy stuff to do later.
Normally, Chuck wouldn’t be a fan of all the physical exertion this entails, but there are worse things than getting up close and personal with Bryce Larkin dressed in a sleeveless shirt and track pants. Chuck and Bryce’s “sparring” sessions (not that they “spar” so much yet; mostly Chuck’s learning things like how to keep someone from grabbing him, how to break free once someone has, and how to free himself when he’s been tied to a chair… again) mean Chuck gets to spend twice as much time with Bryce. They’ve even got to talking about some of the questions that came up the last time they played Ellie’s game. He was looking forward to winning, this time, with Bryce.
Chuck’s still winning, actually, but it’s a little unsettling that he’s winning with John Casey. Casey seems to know Chuck frighteningly well, and though Chuck’s guessed ninety-five percent of the time when it’s been his turn, his answers have somehow always been right. Chuck would give good money to know how Casey is doing it.
“Chuck… Are you and Bryce-”
“Need a hand in there, babe?” Devon interrupts whatever Ellie had been about to ask, and Chuck is a little confused by how quickly she drops the subject. There is literally nothing more personal than some of the personal things that they’ve discussed in front of Devon or with him directly. Devon is… extremely comfortable around his girlfriend and her little brother. Uncomfortably comfortable, Chuck would sometimes say. It was little over a week ago that Devon greeted Chuck in the living room completely naked. Then proceeded to teach Chuck how to tango (though, to be fair, he had put on some underwear by that point.)
Whatever the reason, Chuck’s glad to put the talking to rest and go into the dining room… For more talking. But as part of a group who (so long as nobody gives Morgan any unfortunate ideas) won’t be questioning Chuck’s romantic notions about any other members of the group. Chuck crosses his fingers, grabs the breadsticks to carry to the dinner table, and hopes the night proceeds (if not better than, then) less peculiarly than the day.
Bryce isn’t fond of melodrama. In his career, he’s learned the power of understatement. All the same, he’s sure he would probably sound melodramatic if he compared Bartowski Game Night Version 2.0 (the Carina Edition) to this op in Saigon that went sideways on him a few years ago. He considers the comparison pretty apt, though. He wouldn’t have defined purgatory as a night spent getting pawed on and cooed at by Carina, while simultaneously watching John Casey charm Chuck and his family, before, but now- Well. Bryce stands corrected.
It’s not that he dislikes Carina. In principle. She’s a good agent. Handy to have around in a firefight. But she’s also a troublemaker. She was Sarah’s friend more than Bryce’s and they disagreed at times as to what degree of liability Carina’s troublemaking presented to their work. She’s absolutely not trustworthy - not with Chuck. Not with anything that could advance her career, really, and the knowledge that a human Intersect exists? Yeah. That’d do the trick.
Bryce would have said anything to get her away from Chuck when she barged into the BuyMore this morning, determined on having a one-on-one, but somehow all he managed to do was give her an excuse to get closer to him. Bryce was supposed to keep Carina away from the Intersect. Not introduce her to his entire family.
So he’s a little cranky about that. He doesn’t think he’s overstating things to say that tonight was a disaster. He failed to keep Carina away from Chuck, he somehow managed to convince Casey that he’s trying to keep him “out of the loop” again, Chuck doesn’t seem too happy with him this evening, and Ellie’s been glaring daggers at him for unknown reasons (besides the obvious; it’s never a good idea to bring a date into the home of the woman who’s trying to set you up with her brother.)
Also, Casey was friendly and charming all evening. Casey. Bryce swears that the fourth time Casey smiled at Chuck, Chuck blushed. It was unnatural.
“It was a wonderful evening. Thank you so much for letting me tag along,” Carina tells Ellie as they leave.
Ellie is as polite and kind as ever… at least when her eyes aren’t directed at Bryce. She’s smiling, though, when they walk to the door and she looks at him and says, “Any time,” in a really cheerful tone of voice. Her eyes say, ‘Don’t even think about it.‘ Bryce nods.
Carina keeps her arm linked with his as they walk through the courtyard, away from the Bartowskis’, but at least she drops the saccharine tone of voice she’d adopted for their “date”. Before Bryce can say anything she says, “Well, that was quite the show. I didn’t think Johnny had it in him.”
“What?” Bryce’s train of thought derailed.
“To work a boyfriend and boyfriend cover with your analyst. I would have thought they’d give that one to you. You and Sarah always had similar tastes. Don’t you still like your men tall, dark and h-”
Bryce stops Carina there. There are a number of things he doesn’t like about her statement. For one thing, he doesn’t need to be told a second time in as many weeks which way to handle his asset. A good cover develops organically, the way his relationship with Chuck has been progressing. For another, Bryce sure as hell doesn’t need Carina speculating about his taste in men. But most importantly… “Casey’s not Chuck’s boyfriend.”
Casey’s not the type for “Roan Montgomery-ing”, as he calls it; not as anything but a last resort, Bryce would imagine, and probably never with a male asset. And besides that… No. Just no.
“Could have fooled me,” Carina says, raising a brow. “And that’s the point of a cover, isn’t it? To fool everybody. Unless that’s why you weren’t the one giving Chuck the couple treatment back there. Maybe it’s not your cover you want coupling with Chuck.”
Bryce stops, turning to Carina. He sees it now, in the tension around her eyes, the set of her lips. Maybe he should have expected this somehow, but it’s hard to predict anything about Carina. She was probably Sarah’s closest friend, but that never meant the same thing twice. One day it meant Carina was repelling into a knife fight in Columbia just to have Sarah’s back; the next it meant she had nearly gotten them all killed in Panama while scooping the payoff of a big mission right out from under them.
“You were the one who gave them the impression that you’re here in Burbank for me.”
“I was trying to build a cover of my own,” Carina says, but her voice is hard and her eyes haven’t softened either.
“I know what you were trying to do,” Bryce responds, putting a firmness in his tone to match Carina’s. “And we’re not going there. You could have compromised my cover tonight, and I have to be here for a lot longer than one mission.”
Nothing in Carina will ever resemble an emotion nearing contrite, but she does look less ready to lash out at Bryce at any moment when she says, “I’m just saying. It seems a little fast to be getting back on the horse if you ask me.”
Bryce couldn’t comment on that if he wanted to, and he doesn’t. He doesn’t point out that he didn’t ask Carina, though, either. “I’m here for a job, Carina,” he tells her instead.
She stares at him for a long moment. ‘Hard to predict.’ Actually, that sums up everything about Carina, to a tee. When the tension finally leaves her face every other trace of their preceding conversation leaves with it. Carina smiles, wicked and happy to be.
“It would be hot though, right?” she asks. “Casey and your computer geek? Did you see the way the kid blushed whenever John smiled at him? Oh, Johnny’d own him between the sheets.”
Had Bryce really thought that he doesn’t dislike Carina? Sometimes he’s pretty sure he hates her. Completely.
“Get your head out of the gutter,” Bryce says. “We’ve got a diamond to steal. Meet us at Casey’s tomorrow at three.”
“Sure thing.”
Bryce isn’t sure… about any of this. Carina was the most unpredictable person Bryce knew before he met Chuck Bartowski. Putting them together on a diamond heist should be interesting.
And everyone knows what the Chinese say about times being interesting. It’s a curse.
Bryce drives back to his hotel resisting the urge to check the GPS they put in Chuck’s watch every few moments. Another thing he’s heard the Chinese say about curses is that they often come in threes.
[end.]
AO3
Sequel