Ever-Living Ghosts of Once Was - Chuck and Bryce of Chuck
Title: Ever-Living Ghosts of Once Was
Author: Regann (regann)
Fandom: Chuck
Pairing: Bryce/Chuck
Spoilers: Seasons 1 and 2, only.
Word Count: 4500+
Notes: Title from the Band of Horses's song, "No One's Gonna Love You," heard in S1's ep, "Chuck Versus the Nemesis."
Ever-Living Ghosts of Once Was: Bryce/Chuck Manifesto
When we first encounter Chuck Bartowski and Bryce Larkin, they are both in desperate need for escape -- Chuck from the birthday party his sister has thrown for him and Bryce from a top-secret government facility. On one hand, Chuck is a regular guy, a geek stuck in a dead-end job. Bryce, on the other, is a CIA operative who went rogue, destroyed a highly classified piece of government technology and who ends his wild adventure on the concrete, apparently dead thanks to a bullet in his chest.
But things aren't always what they seem and this is neither the beginning or the end. Instead, we have entered their story in medias res. There's more to come for both of them.
CHUCK 101 --
Chuck is an hour-long spy action/comedy series that airs on NBC and is currently in its third season. The show follows the trials and tribulations of Chuck Bartowski, an ordinary guy who becomes something more when he accidentally downloads a computer's worth of government secrets into his brain thanks to an email from a rogue spy. The computer from which the data came, called the Intersect, is non-operational, so Chuck becomes the supercomputer's replacement. The government tasks two operatives -- NSA agent John Casey and CIA spy Sarah Walker -- with the job of watching over him, and together they protect national interests when called upon to do so.
While the character of Bryce Larkin only appears in seven of thirty-five total episodes that comprise the first two seasons of Chuck, he is integral to the show's premise and mythology, and his fingerprint is felt throughout.
THE CHARACTERS --
Chuck Bartowski
Chuck is just your average 21st-century geek everyman: funny, kind, and smart, but seeming to lack the ambition to achieve something great in his life. He works as one of the "Nerd Herd" computer technicians at a local big box store called Buy More and spends his free time playing video games with his best friend, Morgan. He is very close to his older sister, Ellie, who is a doctor, and lives in an apartment with her and her fiancé, Devon. A lovable slacker, Chuck hasn't been pushed past his limits -- yet.
Bryce Larkin
There is nothing, it seems, that Bryce Larkin can't do. While in college, he not only majored in engineering, but was a runner, a gymnast, and managed to be recruited by the CIA before his senior year. Handsome, charming and armed with all the confidence in the world, Bryce is a take-care kind of man who never wavers until pressure. His past before college is a mystery, though he may hail from Connecticut. The consummate spy, Bryce is the man you want on the job, no matter what that job may be.
THE STORY --
The beginning...
In 1999, during their first semester at Stanford, Bryce befriended Chuck after they bonded over a shared appreciation for the old text-based role-playing game, Zork. Fast forward to 2003, and the two of them are best friends. They joined the same fraternity and are roommates in the frat house; they have had some great times together, including playing games of Gotcha in the school library with dart guns and learning Klingon.
Then one day, Chuck's professor, Dr. Fleming, calls him to his office and tells him that he has been turned in for academic misconduct -- not only for cheating, but for selling the test answers as well. His punishment is to be expelled from college, even though he is innocent, but the real shock is who reported him -- Bryce. When Chuck asked Bryce why he did this to him, Bryce told Chuck he did it to himself.
The middle...
Fast forward another few years, and this is where we meet Chuck and Bryce. Chuck's life has stalled since he was expelled from school, and he seems content to languish in the Buy More job he hates. Then, on his 27th birthday, he receives an email from Bryce, who he hasn't spoken to since he left Stanford. Chuck opens the email to find the old Zork game they programmed together. When he enters the right answer, that's when the magic happens -- thousands of images embedded with classified government information flash across his screen and downloads them into his brain.
Following the trail left by Bryce before he was shot down, the government sends Sarah and Casey to Chuck, and they end up staying around as his handlers. With Bryce gone, Chuck is left to wonder why his ex-friend chose him as the recipient for his email and why he went rogue in the first place.
Then, there comes a mission in which Chuck has to return to Stanford because his former professor, Dr. Fleming, goes missing and is later murdered. It turns out Fleming worked for the government and helped recruit students for the CIA. The trail of clues leads Chuck to a disk of intel Fleming had hidden, and that disk leads Chuck to startling new information about what happened in 2003.
On the disk is a taped interview between Fleming and Bryce, which was supposed to have been between Chuck and the professor. Fleming had planned to recruit Chuck for the Intersect project based on his test scores, and whether Chuck wanted to be recruited or not. Bryce found out and confronted him, telling Fleming that he couldn't let him do that to Chuck. He and the professor concocted the cheating excuse to invalidate the test results and keep the CIA away from Chuck. Chuck realizes that Bryce betrayed him to protect him.
But even this doesn't soften the blow that comes later when Sarah, Chuck and Casey learn that Bryce Larkin is alive. He refuses to speak to anyone but Chuck when brought into the government's custody, but when Chuck arrives, Bryce uses him as a shield to make his escape from the secure facility. Bryce later shows up at Chuck's house and asks for Chuck to arrange it so he can see Sarah alone, a fact that makes Chuck nervous; Chuck has romantic feelings for Sarah and she used to be Bryce's lover. After he agrees, Chuck changes his mind and reveals Bryce's presence to Casey, who charges in and breaks up the reunion.
Sarah and Chuck then find Bryce in Casey's apartment. He rushes to explain that he's not rogue -- he was contacted by a splinter group called Fulcrum for an operation called Sandwall. Instead of letting the Intersect fall into their hands, Bryce stole it, sent the copy to Chuck and destroyed the original to protect it. Casey returns home and promptly shoots him down. Chuck faints at the sight.
Luckily, Bryce learned from past mistakes and is wearing a vest. After explaining how he survived, Bryce gets Chuck, Sarah and Casey to agree to help him turn himself over to the CIA. While he and Sarah are in transit, they are ambushed. They realize Chuck must be in danger as well and head to the Buy More where he and Casey are in a shoot-out with a Fulcrum team. Tommy, the leader, tries to use Chuck as a shield but Bryce, after asking him a question in Klingon, shoots Chuck so Casey can take Tommy out. Like Bryce, Chuck learned a lesson and wore a bullet-proof vest; this is the question Bryce asked him in Klingon.
Once everything has settled, Bryce contacts General Beckman and is given the mission to go after Fulcrum under the radar, on his own. He disappears minutes later, already on his way to a new mission.
After another mission in which they are tutored by the most seductive spy alive, Chuck plans to try his skills on Sarah, only to find Bryce in her apartment, having arrived in town for a new mission -- this one to retrieve a microchip with information needed to upgrade the new Intersect still under construction by the government.
Bryce and Sarah go undercover as an extremely affectionate married couple that incites Chuck's jealousy to the point where he flubs the mission. In trying to salvage it, Chuck endangers himself; Sarah goes off script to save him, putting herself, Chuck and the mission in peril. It's this behavior that Bryce cites when he tells Chuck he has to break off his cover romance with Sarah or else she'll get them both killed. It isn't until after Sarah is unable to take a shot to stop a target for fear that it might kill Chuck that he sees Bryce's point and does so. Before he leaves again, Bryce apologizes to Chuck and says he's only looking out for him.
The end...
The next time Chuck sees Bryce, Chuck's life is on the upswing: he has been reunited with his long-missing father, his sister is getting married and the Intersect has been removed from his head. Bryce comes to town in order to collect the new Intersect cube, the mechanism by which the Intersect does its magic. This cube technology was created by Chuck's father, Stephen Bartowski; the information from the new Intersect will be uploaded into Bryce's head to create another human Intersect, but one trained to deal with its demands.
Unfortunately, Fulcrum leader extraordinaire Ted Roarke infiltrates the church where Ellie and Devon are getting married, and tells Chuck that if he does not bring him the Intersect cube, he will kill Ellie. Chuck goes to get the cube, but it's already been moved. Bryce steps in to help, telling Chuck that they can trade him for Ellie's safety, since Fulcrum is under the impression that Bryce has been the human Intersect all along. With the help of Sarah and Casey, they capture Roarke but ruin the wedding.
After a second wedding for Ellie which Chuck arranges to make up for the first one, Bryce leaves with an agent to have the Intersect downloaded into his head. Stephen, who downloaded a version of the Intersect into his own head during R&D, flashes on the agent, however, and reveals that he's not CIA. Chuck, Sarah and Casey go to save Bryce, but they arrive too late.
Bryce was shot trying to escape the rogue agents and lays wounded in the Intersect room, clutching the means by which to destroy the computer so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Chuck begs him to survive, but Bryce knows he is dying, so he asks Chuck to destroy the Intersect. Once Bryce falls still and lifeless, Chuck fulfills his friend's last request and destroys the latest version of the Intersect -- but only after re-downloading it into his head so that one copy survives.
BRYCE X CHUCK: THE INTERACTIONS
From the time we see the real Bryce Larkin in "Chuck Versus the Alma Mater," his affection for Chuck is clear. Bryce's speech to Fleming is not only sincere and passionate in its own right, but it is at such a juxtaposition to the Bryce we've come to know so far that these heartfelt words are even more shocking when he says them:
I want my friend out of this. [...] You don't get it. Chuck's a good person. He's got too much heart for this kind of work. He's no operative. You can't put him out in the field! He won't survive!
Even Chuck recognizes what the exchange means when he says upon viewing it, "Bryce framed me for cheating to save me. I just wish I could talk to him. It must have tore him up to not be able to tell me."
(You can see the full scene here via YouTube )
Of course, when he says this, Chuck believes his friend is dead and beyond all reach. But Bryce isn't and when we see him again in "Chuck Versus the Nemesis," the first word out of his mouth is Chuck's name.
When Chuck asks what Bryce has told the agents so far, we get this exchange:
Casey: He hasn't seen either of us.
Chuck: Why?
Sarah: Because he asked for you.
Granted, there is all that Intersect business going on, but we get several glimpses of how close these guys were before the Stanford incident. They speak a shared language no one else around them does -- Klingon -- and Bryce seems surprised that Chuck thinks he'd actually hurt him when he takes him hostage to make his escape, saying "You knew I wouldn't do it, right?"
In the same episode, Bryce and Chuck are talking before they hand Bryce over to the CIA, and Bryce tells him that Bryce only has one friend in the world -- Chuck.
Chuck's feelings for Bryce are a little less evident, because he's operating from a place that has been tarnished by years of resentment and pain. But the fact that Bryce's betrayal hurt so much is a sign of how much he cared, and we see it in some of the flashbacks in "Chuck Versus the Alma Mater." That episode shows us the last time they spoke (when Chuck asked Bryce to tell him why he did it), some of the fun times they'd had (the game of dart gun Gotcha) and then when they met -- showing us how Bryce charmed and won over Chuck from their very first conversation. The photo he's kept all those years and rescues from the trash is another sign.
He also opens that fateful email from Bryce five years on, when the last words between them were so angry and bitter, not to mention the telling fact that he faints when he thinks Bryce has been killed again, right before his eyes.
And then, there is that last heartbreaking exchange between them in "Chuck Versus the Ring" as Bryce lay dying:
Chuck: Oh, my god, you've been shot.
Bryce: Yeah. I'm really sorry about this, Chuck.
Chuck: No, no, it's okay. It's okay, you're going to be fine. It's not that bad.
Bryce: Take care of her.
Chuck: Don't, don't say that. You're not dying. She needs you, man, okay? You guys are gonna go on missions together and...do exciting things and save the world. You'll be a team again and it'll be great.
Bryce: She wasn't going to come. She wasn't--
Chuck: Come on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Bryce: This will destroy the Intersect. This new computer is too powerful, it's too dangerous.
Chuck: But you need...you need the computer to fight Fulcrum.
Bryce: Fulcrum doesn't matter. They're just one part of the Ring. They'll use it against us, Chuck. You have to do this. You have to destroy that computer, and then you get out of here.
Chuck: But you can beat them. (Bryce dies.) Bryce...oh, Bryce...Bryce...oh my god.
There's no doubt from all of the above that Bryce and Chuck are important to each other in a fundamental way. But there is one scene I haven't mentioned yet, and it's actually the one that turned my slash goggles on for Bryce/Chuck, especially in terms of Bryce's feelings for Chuck. It comes at the end of "Chuck Versus the Break-Up," when Bryce is trying to convince Chuck that he needs to break up with Sarah.
After he has made his case, Bryce tells Chuck: "I'm sure you hate me right now. But someday you're going to realize I was looking out for you. I have been all along."
(It's also on YouTube, here)
It was a gut-punch of a reminder that Bryce's actions and reasons aren't the ones that might be lingering from the pilot and the first few episodes of the first season; the truth is so much of what Bryce has done has been for Chuck or for what he thought was Chuck's best interest. This is made explicit again in "Chuck Versus the Ring" when Bryce reveals that Stephen Bartowski came to him to protect the Intersect because he trusted Bryce for protecting Chuck at Stanford, and Bryce agreed because he wanted Chuck to have the chance to know the truth about his dad. (YouTube clip here)
PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON BRYCE/CHUCK
In my opinion, the Bryce side of the equation is pretty much canon. Over and over in the show, we see Bryce has continually chosen to act on what he believes is best for Chuck, even if they aren't in his best personal interest. As I said earlier, Chuck is a little trickier.
The Bryce/Chuck relationship reveals itself through issues of trust and sacrifice. We see how Bryce protects Chuck and sacrifices their friendship in order to keep Chuck safe, and then that Bryce took on the Sandwall mission ultimately because of Chuck. It's Bryce's betrayal that has most strongly shaped the Chuck we meet in the pilot episode, and we are shown how bone-deep that betrayal went.
But then, there is the trust: Chuck opens Bryce's email after five years of silence; Bryce trusts in Chuck enough to send him the Intersect and in what they had enough to never doubt the reception he'll receive when they're reunited later on. We see this in Bryce's "You knew I wouldn't do it, right?" after he's used Chuck as a human shield, in the way he implies Of course, you knew I wouldn't hurt you when he says it. And Chuck does trust Bryce -- he trusts him enough to help him and enough to give him the permission to shoot him in "Nemesis," and to listen to him about Sarah in "Break-Up," despite his raging jealousy. Theirs is a strange dance of sacrifice and presumption, loyalty and mistrust, one that intrigues me and makes me want to examine it further.
Here's how it all plays out in my head: back when they were just some geeky frat boys at Stanford, Bryce fell for Chuck. Whether he ever planned to do anything about it is a mystery to us because he never got the chance. Maybe he never did because of Jill (Chuck's college girlfriend) or maybe it was because he ended up recruited by the CIA before he could and he decided it would be too dangerous to let Chuck get any closer. Whatever the reason, it didn't stop Bryce from stepping in when he heard Professor Fleming's message because he wasn't going to let Chuck get sucked into that world -- not his Chuck, who was good and kind and not made for the cutthroat world of spies. And saving Chuck from this fate became paramount to the point where it was more important than anything, including Bryce's ability to be close to Chuck. Bryce sacrifices that in the name of saving Chuck's soul.
Bryce doesn't keep in touch -- we know this because he's surprised to find Chuck's life as it is when they meet again in "Nemesis." But one can imagine that it had to be easier for Bryce to put it out of his head than to dwell on what he'd lost. But he doesn't, does he? He ends up working with Chuck's dad, ends up putting his life and career on the line to go rogue against Fulcrum to protect the Intersect for reasons we find out are about Chuck, at least in part.
Then, Bryce dies and rises again, still protecting Chuck (and the Intersect). He continues to do this every step of the way, until he's offering himself up as bait to save Chuck's sister from Roarke and then dying again -- where he spends his last breath allaying Chuck's fears and telling him to save himself.
It's sad but telling that this is the moment where I think we finally see how much Chuck cares about Bryce. As Bryce is dying, this is when Chuck manages to shed off the inconsequential and see the heart of it. I tend to believe it's the realization of Bryce's sacrifices that pushes Chuck to make the one he does here -- to take on the Intersect once more.
But in the end, they can never get back what they had, and Bryce can't protect Chuck from his fate; his sacrifices have only delayed the inevitable.
Before the Season 2 finale, this pairing was merely bittersweet. At its conclusion, it became tragic.
Not that it was ever very pretty -- it was betrayal and miscommunication, and lingering resentment that never really faded; it was a mess of lost years, a tragedy of an ending, and it feels most strongly of what-might've-been instead of what once was. For all these reasons, it's also not my usual kind of pairing at all.
But all these things are what make it epic, which is why I love it. No matter what comes later for Chuck in canon or in fanon, Bryce will always remain central to his story, just as Chuck never really left Bryce's, even when he was thousands of miles away, both literally and metaphorically.
Bryce and Chuck -- and, by extension, Bryce-slash-Chuck -- is the central lynchpin for the series, the reason the dominoes fall and the die is cast. You can't untangle them and I love that about them, too, even if they never get a happy ending.
But maybe they can have happy ending someday. That's what fanfic is for, afterall, and Bryce has already come back from the dead once before.
BRYCE X CHUCK: THE FANDOM
The Chuck slash community isn't all that large compared to many others I've been involved in, and the most popular pairing is definitely Chuck/Casey. But there are still some great Bryce/Chuck fics out there. There are a few distinct flavors of fic you get for Bryce/Chuck -- you get the fics about their time at Stanford, the fics focused around the show's timeline, and then you get the future fic which, since the Season 2 finale, usually involves resurrecting Bryce.
Luckily, the fandom is small enough that I can point readers to the majority of the available fic with a few links. There are the stories on chuck_slash -- just check out the Bryce/Chuck tag. Then there is the inaugural post on chuckxbryce which is a great list of fics, and I'm not just saying that because one of my fics is listed.
But just to help you get started, here are a few of my absolute favorite Chuck/Bryce fics:
1. This Expansive Dose Of Words by mardia
2. Breathing by Numbers by oxoniensis
3. Memory is like a whatchacallit by jmtorres
FINAL THOUGHTS
One of things you're supposed to cover when you write these ship manifestos is why you -- and others -- ship/should ship a pairing. While that's what I've been doing thus far with the 3000+ words, there are a lot of intangible reasons that are difficult to explain. Besides the story that unfolds in canon, there are the tiny details -- the way Bryce's face lights up when he smiles at Chuck and the way he is always smiling at Chuck, the way Bryce looks at Chuck scene after scene with all that emotion simmering in his eyes. There's the way Chuck just loses it when Bryce is shot in front of him in "Nemesis," the real wistfulness in his voice when Chuck wishes he could talk to Bryce again, and, of course, the way he pleads for Bryce to hold on in "The Ring."
There are hundreds of tiny little things like that that give this pairing the emotional impact it has and that gets me every time. The fact that we get this from a mere seven (only really showcased in five) episodes makes it even more amazing because it manages to be so compelling anyway.
I know I said this pairing isn't like my usual, and it's true, but I'm also a sucker for classic romance, for that one true love that you never forget. And what drew me -- and maybe draws others -- to this pairing is the timelessness of it. It stretches back before the series, lingers through it, and we all know that the memories will live on, past whatever ending they bring to Chuck the character or Chuck the series.
And really -- you can't ask more from a good love story than that.
--
If you haven't had enough of me blithering on about Bryce/Chuck, feel free to check out the "outtakes" from this essay which are more random and less proofread, available on my personal LJ.
Thanks so much for reading!
Author: Regann (regann)
Fandom: Chuck
Pairing: Bryce/Chuck
Spoilers: Seasons 1 and 2, only.
Word Count: 4500+
Notes: Title from the Band of Horses's song, "No One's Gonna Love You," heard in S1's ep, "Chuck Versus the Nemesis."
Ever-Living Ghosts of Once Was: Bryce/Chuck Manifesto
When we first encounter Chuck Bartowski and Bryce Larkin, they are both in desperate need for escape -- Chuck from the birthday party his sister has thrown for him and Bryce from a top-secret government facility. On one hand, Chuck is a regular guy, a geek stuck in a dead-end job. Bryce, on the other, is a CIA operative who went rogue, destroyed a highly classified piece of government technology and who ends his wild adventure on the concrete, apparently dead thanks to a bullet in his chest.
But things aren't always what they seem and this is neither the beginning or the end. Instead, we have entered their story in medias res. There's more to come for both of them.
CHUCK 101 --
Chuck is an hour-long spy action/comedy series that airs on NBC and is currently in its third season. The show follows the trials and tribulations of Chuck Bartowski, an ordinary guy who becomes something more when he accidentally downloads a computer's worth of government secrets into his brain thanks to an email from a rogue spy. The computer from which the data came, called the Intersect, is non-operational, so Chuck becomes the supercomputer's replacement. The government tasks two operatives -- NSA agent John Casey and CIA spy Sarah Walker -- with the job of watching over him, and together they protect national interests when called upon to do so.
While the character of Bryce Larkin only appears in seven of thirty-five total episodes that comprise the first two seasons of Chuck, he is integral to the show's premise and mythology, and his fingerprint is felt throughout.
THE CHARACTERS --
Chuck Bartowski
Chuck is just your average 21st-century geek everyman: funny, kind, and smart, but seeming to lack the ambition to achieve something great in his life. He works as one of the "Nerd Herd" computer technicians at a local big box store called Buy More and spends his free time playing video games with his best friend, Morgan. He is very close to his older sister, Ellie, who is a doctor, and lives in an apartment with her and her fiancé, Devon. A lovable slacker, Chuck hasn't been pushed past his limits -- yet.
Bryce Larkin
There is nothing, it seems, that Bryce Larkin can't do. While in college, he not only majored in engineering, but was a runner, a gymnast, and managed to be recruited by the CIA before his senior year. Handsome, charming and armed with all the confidence in the world, Bryce is a take-care kind of man who never wavers until pressure. His past before college is a mystery, though he may hail from Connecticut. The consummate spy, Bryce is the man you want on the job, no matter what that job may be.
THE STORY --
The beginning...
In 1999, during their first semester at Stanford, Bryce befriended Chuck after they bonded over a shared appreciation for the old text-based role-playing game, Zork. Fast forward to 2003, and the two of them are best friends. They joined the same fraternity and are roommates in the frat house; they have had some great times together, including playing games of Gotcha in the school library with dart guns and learning Klingon.
Then one day, Chuck's professor, Dr. Fleming, calls him to his office and tells him that he has been turned in for academic misconduct -- not only for cheating, but for selling the test answers as well. His punishment is to be expelled from college, even though he is innocent, but the real shock is who reported him -- Bryce. When Chuck asked Bryce why he did this to him, Bryce told Chuck he did it to himself.
The middle...
Fast forward another few years, and this is where we meet Chuck and Bryce. Chuck's life has stalled since he was expelled from school, and he seems content to languish in the Buy More job he hates. Then, on his 27th birthday, he receives an email from Bryce, who he hasn't spoken to since he left Stanford. Chuck opens the email to find the old Zork game they programmed together. When he enters the right answer, that's when the magic happens -- thousands of images embedded with classified government information flash across his screen and downloads them into his brain.
Following the trail left by Bryce before he was shot down, the government sends Sarah and Casey to Chuck, and they end up staying around as his handlers. With Bryce gone, Chuck is left to wonder why his ex-friend chose him as the recipient for his email and why he went rogue in the first place.
Then, there comes a mission in which Chuck has to return to Stanford because his former professor, Dr. Fleming, goes missing and is later murdered. It turns out Fleming worked for the government and helped recruit students for the CIA. The trail of clues leads Chuck to a disk of intel Fleming had hidden, and that disk leads Chuck to startling new information about what happened in 2003.
On the disk is a taped interview between Fleming and Bryce, which was supposed to have been between Chuck and the professor. Fleming had planned to recruit Chuck for the Intersect project based on his test scores, and whether Chuck wanted to be recruited or not. Bryce found out and confronted him, telling Fleming that he couldn't let him do that to Chuck. He and the professor concocted the cheating excuse to invalidate the test results and keep the CIA away from Chuck. Chuck realizes that Bryce betrayed him to protect him.
But even this doesn't soften the blow that comes later when Sarah, Chuck and Casey learn that Bryce Larkin is alive. He refuses to speak to anyone but Chuck when brought into the government's custody, but when Chuck arrives, Bryce uses him as a shield to make his escape from the secure facility. Bryce later shows up at Chuck's house and asks for Chuck to arrange it so he can see Sarah alone, a fact that makes Chuck nervous; Chuck has romantic feelings for Sarah and she used to be Bryce's lover. After he agrees, Chuck changes his mind and reveals Bryce's presence to Casey, who charges in and breaks up the reunion.
Sarah and Chuck then find Bryce in Casey's apartment. He rushes to explain that he's not rogue -- he was contacted by a splinter group called Fulcrum for an operation called Sandwall. Instead of letting the Intersect fall into their hands, Bryce stole it, sent the copy to Chuck and destroyed the original to protect it. Casey returns home and promptly shoots him down. Chuck faints at the sight.
Luckily, Bryce learned from past mistakes and is wearing a vest. After explaining how he survived, Bryce gets Chuck, Sarah and Casey to agree to help him turn himself over to the CIA. While he and Sarah are in transit, they are ambushed. They realize Chuck must be in danger as well and head to the Buy More where he and Casey are in a shoot-out with a Fulcrum team. Tommy, the leader, tries to use Chuck as a shield but Bryce, after asking him a question in Klingon, shoots Chuck so Casey can take Tommy out. Like Bryce, Chuck learned a lesson and wore a bullet-proof vest; this is the question Bryce asked him in Klingon.
Once everything has settled, Bryce contacts General Beckman and is given the mission to go after Fulcrum under the radar, on his own. He disappears minutes later, already on his way to a new mission.
After another mission in which they are tutored by the most seductive spy alive, Chuck plans to try his skills on Sarah, only to find Bryce in her apartment, having arrived in town for a new mission -- this one to retrieve a microchip with information needed to upgrade the new Intersect still under construction by the government.
Bryce and Sarah go undercover as an extremely affectionate married couple that incites Chuck's jealousy to the point where he flubs the mission. In trying to salvage it, Chuck endangers himself; Sarah goes off script to save him, putting herself, Chuck and the mission in peril. It's this behavior that Bryce cites when he tells Chuck he has to break off his cover romance with Sarah or else she'll get them both killed. It isn't until after Sarah is unable to take a shot to stop a target for fear that it might kill Chuck that he sees Bryce's point and does so. Before he leaves again, Bryce apologizes to Chuck and says he's only looking out for him.
The end...
The next time Chuck sees Bryce, Chuck's life is on the upswing: he has been reunited with his long-missing father, his sister is getting married and the Intersect has been removed from his head. Bryce comes to town in order to collect the new Intersect cube, the mechanism by which the Intersect does its magic. This cube technology was created by Chuck's father, Stephen Bartowski; the information from the new Intersect will be uploaded into Bryce's head to create another human Intersect, but one trained to deal with its demands.
Unfortunately, Fulcrum leader extraordinaire Ted Roarke infiltrates the church where Ellie and Devon are getting married, and tells Chuck that if he does not bring him the Intersect cube, he will kill Ellie. Chuck goes to get the cube, but it's already been moved. Bryce steps in to help, telling Chuck that they can trade him for Ellie's safety, since Fulcrum is under the impression that Bryce has been the human Intersect all along. With the help of Sarah and Casey, they capture Roarke but ruin the wedding.
After a second wedding for Ellie which Chuck arranges to make up for the first one, Bryce leaves with an agent to have the Intersect downloaded into his head. Stephen, who downloaded a version of the Intersect into his own head during R&D, flashes on the agent, however, and reveals that he's not CIA. Chuck, Sarah and Casey go to save Bryce, but they arrive too late.
Bryce was shot trying to escape the rogue agents and lays wounded in the Intersect room, clutching the means by which to destroy the computer so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Chuck begs him to survive, but Bryce knows he is dying, so he asks Chuck to destroy the Intersect. Once Bryce falls still and lifeless, Chuck fulfills his friend's last request and destroys the latest version of the Intersect -- but only after re-downloading it into his head so that one copy survives.
BRYCE X CHUCK: THE INTERACTIONS
From the time we see the real Bryce Larkin in "Chuck Versus the Alma Mater," his affection for Chuck is clear. Bryce's speech to Fleming is not only sincere and passionate in its own right, but it is at such a juxtaposition to the Bryce we've come to know so far that these heartfelt words are even more shocking when he says them:
I want my friend out of this. [...] You don't get it. Chuck's a good person. He's got too much heart for this kind of work. He's no operative. You can't put him out in the field! He won't survive!
Even Chuck recognizes what the exchange means when he says upon viewing it, "Bryce framed me for cheating to save me. I just wish I could talk to him. It must have tore him up to not be able to tell me."
(You can see the full scene here via YouTube )
Of course, when he says this, Chuck believes his friend is dead and beyond all reach. But Bryce isn't and when we see him again in "Chuck Versus the Nemesis," the first word out of his mouth is Chuck's name.
When Chuck asks what Bryce has told the agents so far, we get this exchange:
Casey: He hasn't seen either of us.
Chuck: Why?
Sarah: Because he asked for you.
Granted, there is all that Intersect business going on, but we get several glimpses of how close these guys were before the Stanford incident. They speak a shared language no one else around them does -- Klingon -- and Bryce seems surprised that Chuck thinks he'd actually hurt him when he takes him hostage to make his escape, saying "You knew I wouldn't do it, right?"
In the same episode, Bryce and Chuck are talking before they hand Bryce over to the CIA, and Bryce tells him that Bryce only has one friend in the world -- Chuck.
Chuck's feelings for Bryce are a little less evident, because he's operating from a place that has been tarnished by years of resentment and pain. But the fact that Bryce's betrayal hurt so much is a sign of how much he cared, and we see it in some of the flashbacks in "Chuck Versus the Alma Mater." That episode shows us the last time they spoke (when Chuck asked Bryce to tell him why he did it), some of the fun times they'd had (the game of dart gun Gotcha) and then when they met -- showing us how Bryce charmed and won over Chuck from their very first conversation. The photo he's kept all those years and rescues from the trash is another sign.
He also opens that fateful email from Bryce five years on, when the last words between them were so angry and bitter, not to mention the telling fact that he faints when he thinks Bryce has been killed again, right before his eyes.
And then, there is that last heartbreaking exchange between them in "Chuck Versus the Ring" as Bryce lay dying:
Chuck: Oh, my god, you've been shot.
Bryce: Yeah. I'm really sorry about this, Chuck.
Chuck: No, no, it's okay. It's okay, you're going to be fine. It's not that bad.
Bryce: Take care of her.
Chuck: Don't, don't say that. You're not dying. She needs you, man, okay? You guys are gonna go on missions together and...do exciting things and save the world. You'll be a team again and it'll be great.
Bryce: She wasn't going to come. She wasn't--
Chuck: Come on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Bryce: This will destroy the Intersect. This new computer is too powerful, it's too dangerous.
Chuck: But you need...you need the computer to fight Fulcrum.
Bryce: Fulcrum doesn't matter. They're just one part of the Ring. They'll use it against us, Chuck. You have to do this. You have to destroy that computer, and then you get out of here.
Chuck: But you can beat them. (Bryce dies.) Bryce...oh, Bryce...Bryce...oh my god.
There's no doubt from all of the above that Bryce and Chuck are important to each other in a fundamental way. But there is one scene I haven't mentioned yet, and it's actually the one that turned my slash goggles on for Bryce/Chuck, especially in terms of Bryce's feelings for Chuck. It comes at the end of "Chuck Versus the Break-Up," when Bryce is trying to convince Chuck that he needs to break up with Sarah.
After he has made his case, Bryce tells Chuck: "I'm sure you hate me right now. But someday you're going to realize I was looking out for you. I have been all along."
(It's also on YouTube, here)
It was a gut-punch of a reminder that Bryce's actions and reasons aren't the ones that might be lingering from the pilot and the first few episodes of the first season; the truth is so much of what Bryce has done has been for Chuck or for what he thought was Chuck's best interest. This is made explicit again in "Chuck Versus the Ring" when Bryce reveals that Stephen Bartowski came to him to protect the Intersect because he trusted Bryce for protecting Chuck at Stanford, and Bryce agreed because he wanted Chuck to have the chance to know the truth about his dad. (YouTube clip here)
PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON BRYCE/CHUCK
In my opinion, the Bryce side of the equation is pretty much canon. Over and over in the show, we see Bryce has continually chosen to act on what he believes is best for Chuck, even if they aren't in his best personal interest. As I said earlier, Chuck is a little trickier.
The Bryce/Chuck relationship reveals itself through issues of trust and sacrifice. We see how Bryce protects Chuck and sacrifices their friendship in order to keep Chuck safe, and then that Bryce took on the Sandwall mission ultimately because of Chuck. It's Bryce's betrayal that has most strongly shaped the Chuck we meet in the pilot episode, and we are shown how bone-deep that betrayal went.
But then, there is the trust: Chuck opens Bryce's email after five years of silence; Bryce trusts in Chuck enough to send him the Intersect and in what they had enough to never doubt the reception he'll receive when they're reunited later on. We see this in Bryce's "You knew I wouldn't do it, right?" after he's used Chuck as a human shield, in the way he implies Of course, you knew I wouldn't hurt you when he says it. And Chuck does trust Bryce -- he trusts him enough to help him and enough to give him the permission to shoot him in "Nemesis," and to listen to him about Sarah in "Break-Up," despite his raging jealousy. Theirs is a strange dance of sacrifice and presumption, loyalty and mistrust, one that intrigues me and makes me want to examine it further.
Here's how it all plays out in my head: back when they were just some geeky frat boys at Stanford, Bryce fell for Chuck. Whether he ever planned to do anything about it is a mystery to us because he never got the chance. Maybe he never did because of Jill (Chuck's college girlfriend) or maybe it was because he ended up recruited by the CIA before he could and he decided it would be too dangerous to let Chuck get any closer. Whatever the reason, it didn't stop Bryce from stepping in when he heard Professor Fleming's message because he wasn't going to let Chuck get sucked into that world -- not his Chuck, who was good and kind and not made for the cutthroat world of spies. And saving Chuck from this fate became paramount to the point where it was more important than anything, including Bryce's ability to be close to Chuck. Bryce sacrifices that in the name of saving Chuck's soul.
Bryce doesn't keep in touch -- we know this because he's surprised to find Chuck's life as it is when they meet again in "Nemesis." But one can imagine that it had to be easier for Bryce to put it out of his head than to dwell on what he'd lost. But he doesn't, does he? He ends up working with Chuck's dad, ends up putting his life and career on the line to go rogue against Fulcrum to protect the Intersect for reasons we find out are about Chuck, at least in part.
Then, Bryce dies and rises again, still protecting Chuck (and the Intersect). He continues to do this every step of the way, until he's offering himself up as bait to save Chuck's sister from Roarke and then dying again -- where he spends his last breath allaying Chuck's fears and telling him to save himself.
It's sad but telling that this is the moment where I think we finally see how much Chuck cares about Bryce. As Bryce is dying, this is when Chuck manages to shed off the inconsequential and see the heart of it. I tend to believe it's the realization of Bryce's sacrifices that pushes Chuck to make the one he does here -- to take on the Intersect once more.
But in the end, they can never get back what they had, and Bryce can't protect Chuck from his fate; his sacrifices have only delayed the inevitable.
Before the Season 2 finale, this pairing was merely bittersweet. At its conclusion, it became tragic.
Not that it was ever very pretty -- it was betrayal and miscommunication, and lingering resentment that never really faded; it was a mess of lost years, a tragedy of an ending, and it feels most strongly of what-might've-been instead of what once was. For all these reasons, it's also not my usual kind of pairing at all.
But all these things are what make it epic, which is why I love it. No matter what comes later for Chuck in canon or in fanon, Bryce will always remain central to his story, just as Chuck never really left Bryce's, even when he was thousands of miles away, both literally and metaphorically.
Bryce and Chuck -- and, by extension, Bryce-slash-Chuck -- is the central lynchpin for the series, the reason the dominoes fall and the die is cast. You can't untangle them and I love that about them, too, even if they never get a happy ending.
But maybe they can have happy ending someday. That's what fanfic is for, afterall, and Bryce has already come back from the dead once before.
BRYCE X CHUCK: THE FANDOM
The Chuck slash community isn't all that large compared to many others I've been involved in, and the most popular pairing is definitely Chuck/Casey. But there are still some great Bryce/Chuck fics out there. There are a few distinct flavors of fic you get for Bryce/Chuck -- you get the fics about their time at Stanford, the fics focused around the show's timeline, and then you get the future fic which, since the Season 2 finale, usually involves resurrecting Bryce.
Luckily, the fandom is small enough that I can point readers to the majority of the available fic with a few links. There are the stories on chuck_slash -- just check out the Bryce/Chuck tag. Then there is the inaugural post on chuckxbryce which is a great list of fics, and I'm not just saying that because one of my fics is listed.
But just to help you get started, here are a few of my absolute favorite Chuck/Bryce fics:
1. This Expansive Dose Of Words by mardia
2. Breathing by Numbers by oxoniensis
3. Memory is like a whatchacallit by jmtorres
FINAL THOUGHTS
One of things you're supposed to cover when you write these ship manifestos is why you -- and others -- ship/should ship a pairing. While that's what I've been doing thus far with the 3000+ words, there are a lot of intangible reasons that are difficult to explain. Besides the story that unfolds in canon, there are the tiny details -- the way Bryce's face lights up when he smiles at Chuck and the way he is always smiling at Chuck, the way Bryce looks at Chuck scene after scene with all that emotion simmering in his eyes. There's the way Chuck just loses it when Bryce is shot in front of him in "Nemesis," the real wistfulness in his voice when Chuck wishes he could talk to Bryce again, and, of course, the way he pleads for Bryce to hold on in "The Ring."
There are hundreds of tiny little things like that that give this pairing the emotional impact it has and that gets me every time. The fact that we get this from a mere seven (only really showcased in five) episodes makes it even more amazing because it manages to be so compelling anyway.
I know I said this pairing isn't like my usual, and it's true, but I'm also a sucker for classic romance, for that one true love that you never forget. And what drew me -- and maybe draws others -- to this pairing is the timelessness of it. It stretches back before the series, lingers through it, and we all know that the memories will live on, past whatever ending they bring to Chuck the character or Chuck the series.
And really -- you can't ask more from a good love story than that.
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If you haven't had enough of me blithering on about Bryce/Chuck, feel free to check out the "outtakes" from this essay which are more random and less proofread, available on my personal LJ.
Thanks so much for reading!