Advent Calendar Day Seven - Chuck fic: The Nine Lives of Bryce Larkin
Day One | Avalanche, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, R, 400 words | for pjvilar
Day Two | No Fu Manchu, Hawaii Five-0, Danny, Steve, PG, 803 words | for laceymcbain
Day Three | running away from nothing real, Inception, Eames/Ariadne, R, 1,358 words | for vinylroad
Day Four | they said a hundred times I should have died, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, NC-17, 1,192 words | for pau494
Day Five | try again, die again, die better, Torchwood, Jack, wallpaper | for pierhias
Day Six | monsters are always hungry, darling, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, NC-17, 1,001 words | for lunatics_word
misura, as soon as I saw Diana Wynne Jones in your interests, I had to write this crossover!! I mean, Bryce has nine lives, there's only one thing that can mean! For anyone not familiar with the Chrestomanci series, it should still make sense.
The Nine Lives of Bryce Larkin [Chuck/Chrestomanci series (Diana Wynne Jones), Bryce/Chuck, Chrestomanci, PG-13, 1,760 words, for misura, prompt: nine lives. Beta thanks to athenejen.]
The loss of his first two lives, Bryce only recognizes in hindsight.
*
He's always assumed he was just lucky. In one sense, anyway. Having a long list of people who want him dead and getting shot at on a daily basis might not count as lucky in some books, but hey, he gets shot, he bounces back. That's lucky in his book.
Lesson number one: it wasn't luck. It was magic.
Lesson two, which follows on from lesson one: yes, magic really does exist.
Lesson three: Bryce can't just do magic. He's not some illusionist or conjuror or back-street magician. He's more than a sorcerer, even. He's an enchanter. Actually, make that Enchanter, with a capital E. A nine-lived Enchanter.
Lesson four: nine-lived Enchanters are really very special.
*
Bryce lost his first life when he was a baby. He doesn't remember it of course, but he's heard the story repeatedly - how he was stolen from his stroller by a homeless person and found abandoned in a dumpster the next morning. It was January in Connecticut, and it snowed that night. They called him the miracle baby.
He lost his second when he was seventeen and stupid. This one he remembers all too well; he liked to drive fast, but back then he hadn't quite learned how. The car was totaled. Bryce, miraculously, wasn't.
There's that word again. Miracle. It crops up often whenever anyone talks about Bryce.
*
His third life everyone knows about. How John Casey shot him (far more times than was really necessary) and left him for dead. People Casey leaves for dead, stay dead. Unless they're... different. Say, a nine-lived Enchanter.
*
His fourth life, well, that he would have given up even if it had been his last. That was to save Chuck.
In the end, Chuck saved himself - with a little help from the Intersect - but Bryce still doesn't regret it.
*
There's a guy in Bryce's hotel room, dressed in a richly-embroidered silk dressing gown. He says he's Chrestomanci.
Bryce raises his eyebrows, but lets him keep on talking. Bryce has a knife holstered on his ankle and a gun that he can reach in less than half a second. He's in control of the situation.
He finds himself listening, even though the man is clearly crazy.
"You see," Chrestomanci is saying in a cut-glass British accent, "most people only have one life because there are multiple versions of them out there in multiple universes. But some people, a very select few, have no duplicates. And those people have nine lives."
"Like a cat," Bryce says, because at this point he's not taking it seriously.
"Not exactly," the man says. "We literally have nine lives. Well, you currently have five left, and I have two. You have to be more careful when they run down - you don't want to waste them."
Bryce does consider the possibility that Chrestomanci is working for the Russians or the Chinese or possibly the North Koreans. He might sound crazy, but now that Bryce checks more closely, if you ignore the bizarre sartorial choice, the guy doesn't actually look crazy. Bryce listens for the sound of men outside, or for the faint hiss of chemicals agents, or for any other sign that this is simply a distraction.
Not even Bryce could have anticipated what actually happens.
*
The first thing he does is draw his gun. The second thing he does is turn around to face the person walking down the steps.
Steps. He's not in his hotel room, because that didn't have steps. No, he's standing in front of a castle. A real, honey-colored stone, turrets-and-all castle. A huge castle with an imposing flight of steps leading up to it, and a stone dragon sitting on a plinth.
"Do put that nasty thing away," the woman walking down the steps says, and Bryce finds himself tucking his gun away before he even has time to think.
The dragon winks at Bryce and flaps its wings. Not a stone dragon then.
The maybe-crazy guy is standing next to Bryce. "I thought you needed a little convincing," he says. "Meet my wife, Millie."
"You've been very difficult to find, you know," Millie says. "Christopher's been all over the place, looking for you."
Christopher, presumably, is also known as Chrestomanci.
"I take it everything your husband told me is actually true," Bryce says calmly, because the ability to react with aplomb under the most unlikely circumstances is part of what makes him such a good spy.
"Of course," Chrestomanci says. "And my wife is right - I have been searching for you for a long time. You'll really need to develop your magic more before you can become Chrestomanci."
This is where Bryce has to do some quick addition and make two and two add up to something quite unexpected. "Chrestomanci is a job title," he says. "And you're recruiting for the job."
Chrestomanci grins. "Quite right, dear boy. I'll need a successor one day, someone to keep an eye on the use of magic throughout the worlds, and it has to be a nine-lived Enchanter. But your world is so strongly non-magical it's lucky you've developed any talents at all. Ah, Mr. Saunders," he says, calling out to a pasty-looking young man who's leaning out one of the first floor windows. "Have the children finished their lessons for the day?" He seems to have completely forgotten Bryce, but Bryce isn't fooled by the apparent vagueness.
*
So that's when Bryce learns how to do magic. No one is surprised if he's off the grid for a month or two, so he alternates missions with lessons. Training to be the next Chrestomanci fits in oddly well with the life of a spy.
*
He isn't quite sure how to break the news to Chuck.
In the end, it's easy. Painful, but easy. He stands in front of a bullet that has Chuck's name on it, and after he's shot the bad guy, he lies in Chuck's arms and says, "I'll be back."
Chuck looks heartbroken, blinking back tears. "You're not supposed to do this," he says, clutching Bryce too tight.
"Yeah, I am," Bryce says, though it's not very loud because it's hard to talk when a bullet's pierced your lungs. "But I really will be back," he promises. "I've got nine lives."
"Like a cat," Chuck says, the tears spilling over now, and Bryce wants to say no, not really, but he can't seem to breathe any more.
*
He wakes up in bed. He's a bit sore, but otherwise no ill effects. Now he just has to go and say hi to Chuck, and do a whole lot of explaining.
Turns out, a steady diet of video games and a closeness that means Chuck is the only one who can ever tell with a hundred percent accuracy whether or not Bryce is lying make the explanation go a lot faster than it might have otherwise.
After twenty minutes, Chuck is almost convinced. "I know you're not lying, buddy, but you just had a near death experience yesterday-"
"I did die. You saw me die," Bryce interrupts.
"Yes, well. I know you believe you died, and it was a close thing. I thought you'd died. Besides, it's all sounding kinda-" Chuck has the sort of sheepish expression on his face that tells Bryce that he's not going to appreciate Chuck's next words, "like something Morgan would dream up."
So Bryce goes for the big guns. "Chrestomanci," he calls. "Chrestomanci, Chrestomanci."
And Chrestomanci shows up. "You do realize that calling my name is meant for an emergency," he says, bad-tempered. He looks drained, and his dressing gown, while as ornate as ever, is very creased, and his shiny boots are splattered with mud. He was probably in the middle of solving another world crisis. Bryce is beginning to learn that the job involves some very long hours. Good thing he's used to that.
He feels a pang of guilt, but he still hasn't learned how to move between worlds by himself, so he needs Chrestomanci for this. A quick trip to Chrestomanci Castle is all Chuck needs to be convinced.
*
Except Chuck, being Chuck, comes up with an assortment of alternative explanations for what happened, including hallucinogenic drugs and evil scientists playing with his brain. Which is understandable, given that he's experienced both.
It takes two more days and several displays of Bryce's newly learned magical skills to finally, completely, and thoroughly convince Chuck.
"Wow. That's just-wow. You are even more awesome than Captain Awesome himself. And I didn't think that was possible," Chuck says, and gets Bryce to animate the characters in his favorite issue of Zoot Comics. Rulah, Jungle Goddess, lives up to her title.
*
The slightly more awkward conversation comes over the weekend, during a season two marathon of The Next Generation.
"So you have four lives left," Chuck says while Wesley Crusher is on screen being whiny.
"Yeah," Bryce says, a little uncomfortable, because it seems like one of those things that people just don't talk about.
"And you gave up two for me," Chuck carries on.
Bryce shrugs, because it's Chuck, it's no big deal.
"Thanks," Chuck says. "Which I know sounds kind of inadequate. Well, it is inadequate, of course it is. But I'm not sure what the thing to say is when someone sacrifices their life for you. Twice. There isn't really a word for it. There ought to be, except there wouldn't be an awful lot of use for it, seeing as most people would be dead if they'd sacrificed their life so of course they wouldn't be around to thank, and -"
Bryce does the only thing a sane guy in love with his best friend would do at this point. He kisses him to shut him up.
It's Chuck, so it's only effective for about a minute, but it's a very enjoyable minute, especially as they go from upright on the couch to horizontal and mostly on the floor. There's a rug, it's comfortable enough.
"That was unexpected," Chuck says at the end of the minute.
"Nothing in the Intersect to warn you that was coming?"
"No, nope, nothing." Then Chuck grins, a little sly. "We could try it again, see if I flash this time."
Bryce is up for that.
Chuck doesn't flash all night, but he doesn't once suggest they give up. It's one of the many things Bryce loves about him.
//
Day Two | No Fu Manchu, Hawaii Five-0, Danny, Steve, PG, 803 words | for laceymcbain
Day Three | running away from nothing real, Inception, Eames/Ariadne, R, 1,358 words | for vinylroad
Day Four | they said a hundred times I should have died, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, NC-17, 1,192 words | for pau494
Day Five | try again, die again, die better, Torchwood, Jack, wallpaper | for pierhias
Day Six | monsters are always hungry, darling, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, NC-17, 1,001 words | for lunatics_word
misura, as soon as I saw Diana Wynne Jones in your interests, I had to write this crossover!! I mean, Bryce has nine lives, there's only one thing that can mean! For anyone not familiar with the Chrestomanci series, it should still make sense.
The Nine Lives of Bryce Larkin [Chuck/Chrestomanci series (Diana Wynne Jones), Bryce/Chuck, Chrestomanci, PG-13, 1,760 words, for misura, prompt: nine lives. Beta thanks to athenejen.]
The loss of his first two lives, Bryce only recognizes in hindsight.
*
He's always assumed he was just lucky. In one sense, anyway. Having a long list of people who want him dead and getting shot at on a daily basis might not count as lucky in some books, but hey, he gets shot, he bounces back. That's lucky in his book.
Lesson number one: it wasn't luck. It was magic.
Lesson two, which follows on from lesson one: yes, magic really does exist.
Lesson three: Bryce can't just do magic. He's not some illusionist or conjuror or back-street magician. He's more than a sorcerer, even. He's an enchanter. Actually, make that Enchanter, with a capital E. A nine-lived Enchanter.
Lesson four: nine-lived Enchanters are really very special.
*
Bryce lost his first life when he was a baby. He doesn't remember it of course, but he's heard the story repeatedly - how he was stolen from his stroller by a homeless person and found abandoned in a dumpster the next morning. It was January in Connecticut, and it snowed that night. They called him the miracle baby.
He lost his second when he was seventeen and stupid. This one he remembers all too well; he liked to drive fast, but back then he hadn't quite learned how. The car was totaled. Bryce, miraculously, wasn't.
There's that word again. Miracle. It crops up often whenever anyone talks about Bryce.
*
His third life everyone knows about. How John Casey shot him (far more times than was really necessary) and left him for dead. People Casey leaves for dead, stay dead. Unless they're... different. Say, a nine-lived Enchanter.
*
His fourth life, well, that he would have given up even if it had been his last. That was to save Chuck.
In the end, Chuck saved himself - with a little help from the Intersect - but Bryce still doesn't regret it.
*
There's a guy in Bryce's hotel room, dressed in a richly-embroidered silk dressing gown. He says he's Chrestomanci.
Bryce raises his eyebrows, but lets him keep on talking. Bryce has a knife holstered on his ankle and a gun that he can reach in less than half a second. He's in control of the situation.
He finds himself listening, even though the man is clearly crazy.
"You see," Chrestomanci is saying in a cut-glass British accent, "most people only have one life because there are multiple versions of them out there in multiple universes. But some people, a very select few, have no duplicates. And those people have nine lives."
"Like a cat," Bryce says, because at this point he's not taking it seriously.
"Not exactly," the man says. "We literally have nine lives. Well, you currently have five left, and I have two. You have to be more careful when they run down - you don't want to waste them."
Bryce does consider the possibility that Chrestomanci is working for the Russians or the Chinese or possibly the North Koreans. He might sound crazy, but now that Bryce checks more closely, if you ignore the bizarre sartorial choice, the guy doesn't actually look crazy. Bryce listens for the sound of men outside, or for the faint hiss of chemicals agents, or for any other sign that this is simply a distraction.
Not even Bryce could have anticipated what actually happens.
*
The first thing he does is draw his gun. The second thing he does is turn around to face the person walking down the steps.
Steps. He's not in his hotel room, because that didn't have steps. No, he's standing in front of a castle. A real, honey-colored stone, turrets-and-all castle. A huge castle with an imposing flight of steps leading up to it, and a stone dragon sitting on a plinth.
"Do put that nasty thing away," the woman walking down the steps says, and Bryce finds himself tucking his gun away before he even has time to think.
The dragon winks at Bryce and flaps its wings. Not a stone dragon then.
The maybe-crazy guy is standing next to Bryce. "I thought you needed a little convincing," he says. "Meet my wife, Millie."
"You've been very difficult to find, you know," Millie says. "Christopher's been all over the place, looking for you."
Christopher, presumably, is also known as Chrestomanci.
"I take it everything your husband told me is actually true," Bryce says calmly, because the ability to react with aplomb under the most unlikely circumstances is part of what makes him such a good spy.
"Of course," Chrestomanci says. "And my wife is right - I have been searching for you for a long time. You'll really need to develop your magic more before you can become Chrestomanci."
This is where Bryce has to do some quick addition and make two and two add up to something quite unexpected. "Chrestomanci is a job title," he says. "And you're recruiting for the job."
Chrestomanci grins. "Quite right, dear boy. I'll need a successor one day, someone to keep an eye on the use of magic throughout the worlds, and it has to be a nine-lived Enchanter. But your world is so strongly non-magical it's lucky you've developed any talents at all. Ah, Mr. Saunders," he says, calling out to a pasty-looking young man who's leaning out one of the first floor windows. "Have the children finished their lessons for the day?" He seems to have completely forgotten Bryce, but Bryce isn't fooled by the apparent vagueness.
*
So that's when Bryce learns how to do magic. No one is surprised if he's off the grid for a month or two, so he alternates missions with lessons. Training to be the next Chrestomanci fits in oddly well with the life of a spy.
*
He isn't quite sure how to break the news to Chuck.
In the end, it's easy. Painful, but easy. He stands in front of a bullet that has Chuck's name on it, and after he's shot the bad guy, he lies in Chuck's arms and says, "I'll be back."
Chuck looks heartbroken, blinking back tears. "You're not supposed to do this," he says, clutching Bryce too tight.
"Yeah, I am," Bryce says, though it's not very loud because it's hard to talk when a bullet's pierced your lungs. "But I really will be back," he promises. "I've got nine lives."
"Like a cat," Chuck says, the tears spilling over now, and Bryce wants to say no, not really, but he can't seem to breathe any more.
*
He wakes up in bed. He's a bit sore, but otherwise no ill effects. Now he just has to go and say hi to Chuck, and do a whole lot of explaining.
Turns out, a steady diet of video games and a closeness that means Chuck is the only one who can ever tell with a hundred percent accuracy whether or not Bryce is lying make the explanation go a lot faster than it might have otherwise.
After twenty minutes, Chuck is almost convinced. "I know you're not lying, buddy, but you just had a near death experience yesterday-"
"I did die. You saw me die," Bryce interrupts.
"Yes, well. I know you believe you died, and it was a close thing. I thought you'd died. Besides, it's all sounding kinda-" Chuck has the sort of sheepish expression on his face that tells Bryce that he's not going to appreciate Chuck's next words, "like something Morgan would dream up."
So Bryce goes for the big guns. "Chrestomanci," he calls. "Chrestomanci, Chrestomanci."
And Chrestomanci shows up. "You do realize that calling my name is meant for an emergency," he says, bad-tempered. He looks drained, and his dressing gown, while as ornate as ever, is very creased, and his shiny boots are splattered with mud. He was probably in the middle of solving another world crisis. Bryce is beginning to learn that the job involves some very long hours. Good thing he's used to that.
He feels a pang of guilt, but he still hasn't learned how to move between worlds by himself, so he needs Chrestomanci for this. A quick trip to Chrestomanci Castle is all Chuck needs to be convinced.
*
Except Chuck, being Chuck, comes up with an assortment of alternative explanations for what happened, including hallucinogenic drugs and evil scientists playing with his brain. Which is understandable, given that he's experienced both.
It takes two more days and several displays of Bryce's newly learned magical skills to finally, completely, and thoroughly convince Chuck.
"Wow. That's just-wow. You are even more awesome than Captain Awesome himself. And I didn't think that was possible," Chuck says, and gets Bryce to animate the characters in his favorite issue of Zoot Comics. Rulah, Jungle Goddess, lives up to her title.
*
The slightly more awkward conversation comes over the weekend, during a season two marathon of The Next Generation.
"So you have four lives left," Chuck says while Wesley Crusher is on screen being whiny.
"Yeah," Bryce says, a little uncomfortable, because it seems like one of those things that people just don't talk about.
"And you gave up two for me," Chuck carries on.
Bryce shrugs, because it's Chuck, it's no big deal.
"Thanks," Chuck says. "Which I know sounds kind of inadequate. Well, it is inadequate, of course it is. But I'm not sure what the thing to say is when someone sacrifices their life for you. Twice. There isn't really a word for it. There ought to be, except there wouldn't be an awful lot of use for it, seeing as most people would be dead if they'd sacrificed their life so of course they wouldn't be around to thank, and -"
Bryce does the only thing a sane guy in love with his best friend would do at this point. He kisses him to shut him up.
It's Chuck, so it's only effective for about a minute, but it's a very enjoyable minute, especially as they go from upright on the couch to horizontal and mostly on the floor. There's a rug, it's comfortable enough.
"That was unexpected," Chuck says at the end of the minute.
"Nothing in the Intersect to warn you that was coming?"
"No, nope, nothing." Then Chuck grins, a little sly. "We could try it again, see if I flash this time."
Bryce is up for that.
Chuck doesn't flash all night, but he doesn't once suggest they give up. It's one of the many things Bryce loves about him.
//