#charles bartowski

Chuck 1x01: Pilot (1/91)

Imagine being Casey’s favorite.

            Sarah and Casey always got to sit in the front seats on stakeouts. They had an inhuman ability to stay focused for hours. You leaned forwards between the two agents while Chuck played a game on his phone to kill time, sulking about being kidnapped from a date with Lou.

            “What are these?” You asked, spying the cup on the console that Casey was taking handfuls out of. You answered your own question. “Ooh, sunflower seeds!” With the stakeout stretching on, the munchies were setting in. You stole a bunch of seeds from Casey.

            “Yeah, that’s alright,” he grumpily complained, using his signature sarcasm. “Go ahead, eat my snacks. Bring your own next time, Y/N.” Still, he didn’t move the cup out of your reach.

            “Hey, hold on,” Chuck indignantly dropped his jaw and tossed his phone onto the seat. “You always tell me no snacks in your car! How come she gets them?”

            Casey looked up at the rearview mirror and stared right into Chuck’s eyes. “Because she isn’t an annoying pest who keeps screwing up our missions every time she tries to help.”

            “This – This is not fair. Sarah?” The techie turned his head to the blonde pleadingly. “Are you hearing this? This isn’t fair. He’s giving her better treatment!”

            “It’s America,” Casey jeered. “I can do that.” As an afterthought, he sent the younger man another glare and muttered, “Tattletale.”

            You giggled quietly and teased, “Snitches get stitches, Chuck.” The brunet glowered at you and stole some of the sunflower seeds right out of your hand.

~~~

            You, Sarah, and Chuck sprinted down the dock, Sarah leading the way because she was in way better shape. You could feel your pulse in your ears – if you were too late, your oblivious friends would be hurt by the counterfeiters you’d failed to catch the first time.

            Someone jumped down onto the boardwalk from the edge of the path to your left. Sarah had already passed, but you and Chuck stopped in front of Casey, still wearing his sales shirt and sending Chuck a very dirty look. “Gone behind my back to get your ‘girlfriend,’ Bartowski?” He questioned with a nod of his head towards Sarah, who realized you’d stopped and doubled back.

            “You came!” Sarah exclaimed, surprised. Chuck said he asked Casey for assistance first, but the agent had refused.

            “Well, I figure someone had better protect our informant.” Casey crossed his eyes and stood slightly in front of you, making it clear who it was he was worried about. “And the Intersect, too, I guess.”

           Your life turned upside down the day after your best friend’s did the same. One day you were a part-time student in a crappy LA apartment with two sucky part-time jobs. The next, you were a part-time student in a crappy LA apartment with two sucky part-time jobs and a side hobby of keeping government secrets – like the existence of the Intersect in your best friend’s head.

           “This is crazy,” you whispered to your dashboard, parked in the Buy More parking lot. Inside were a man and woman who had both held guns on you less than twenty-four hours ago.

           The passenger door opened suddenly and you almost screamed. Chuck climbed into your car and slammed the door as fast as he could, his long legs crammed between the seat and the glove compartment, his hands on his knees. “Y/N, I’m freaking out,” he announced in a panic.

           “What? Is your shift over? Did you just walk out? Are we running away?”

           “I just flashed,” he gasped, still trying to catch his breath. “I saw Sarah and I flashed. She killed people, Y/N! She beat them up like – like some gorgeous blonde ninja and killed them!”

           You winced. Sarah and Casey both scared you quite a bit. You didn’t know them, didn’t trust them.

           “I flashed on her ring!” He rambled, nervous and panicky. He rubbed his palms on his knees anxiously, like he wanted to run. You worriedly tried to make eye contact but he wouldn’t focus on you, and his face was pale. “I just saw her ring and saw things I should never have seen! I know things I have never learned! And – and I didn’t choose for it to happen, it just did, and I was just along for the ride! This thing is in my brain and I don’t want it there, it just takes over and I – I don’t know what to do! I don’t want to live with this!”

           “Chuck,” you stressed once he had run out of breath. You reached over and rubbed his thigh. “I know this is messed up. I know you’re scared, I am too.” You pulled his hand up and put your fingers in his. “But it’s not forever. They don’t want to be here or for you to have the computer in your brain any more than we do.”

           He turned the puppy dog eyes on you and made a tiny whimper in his throat. “Why is this happening to me?”

           “Because Bryce is a dick,” you replied promptly. “But we already knew that.” He had gotten Chuck expelled, after all.

           “Was,” Chuck mumbled, looking down at your hand holding his.

           You held in a sigh. “Yeah. Was.”

           You were both quiet for a few seconds. Bryce, for all he’d done to Chuck, had still been one of your best friend’s best friends and no level of animosity could have made Chuck want him dead.

           “I’m sorry,” you said softly, squeezing his hand. Chuck squeezed back, his hand shaking a little and his palm sweaty. “It’s going to be okay. Sarah’s going to protect you, even if Casey won’t, and they’ll get the Intersect out and we can go back to our lives sooner than you think, okay? Because they’re the goddamn CIA. They can get things done.”

           “Yeah…” He responded, taking in a deep breath. He rubbed his face with his free hand to rub the color back into his cheeks and then put his fist against his stomach while he breathed. “Okay. This is temporary. It’ll be okay.”

Imagine Chuck freaking out to you after receiving the Intersect.

               “Wait,” you interrupted him, holding your hand up. Chuck’s mouth was trying to run a hundred miles an hour and you were still half asleep. You rubbed your eyes and watched him bite his lip, trying hard to shut up for a second but clearly bursting at the seams. “This email, it was from Bryce? You got an email from Bryce and you didn’t immediately delete it?”

               Chuck sighed and grabbed your cereal bowl away from you, trying to make you focus. “No, I didn’t,” he said, shoving a spoonful of your breakfast in his mouth. You glowered tiredly. “I opened it, and there was just this attachment, and when I opened it I don’t know what happened. Then I woke up on the floor.”

               You frowned and pulled your cereal back. “How late were you playing games last night?”

               “This wasn’t from a game! I’m being totally real with you!” Chuck gave you back your spoon and let you keep eating. He jumped up from the kitchen chair and started pacing in front of the table. “At work today, there was this news broadcast. It was about this general who’s visiting a conference and somehow I already know he’s here! I’ve never seen this man before in my life!”

               “You probably heard his name or saw his picture somewhere and forgot,” you said soothingly. Chuck was very clearly freaking out. “Like how you can’t dream about a face you never actually saw.”

               “How do you explain the guy in the Large Mart?!” Chuck started pointing with both hands towards the door while your shoulders sagged. “That was a bad guy! That was a textbook Bad Guy!”

               “Chuck, not everyone who wears leather jackets and has a tattoo or several is a bad guy…”

               “He had a weapon!”

               “He had an appliance sold in Large Mart that many normal, totally not bad people buy,” you revised for him. “Honestly, Chuck, anything is a weapon if you try hard enough.”

               Chuck sat down hard and put his head in his hands. He sat silently for a few seconds, reeling through everything he had told you and your responses. You quietly munched on your cereal, reaching out under the table with your foot to nudge his shoe supportively.

               “I’m losing my mind,” he whispered, rubbing his hands down his face.

               “Look,” you said, willing to compromise. The mantel of the crazy friend had always belonged to Morgan. “Why don’t you and I go out to dinner? We can stop at Large Mart on the way back, and we can Google the general and see where you might have heard of him before. Everything is normal. I promise.”

Ways to approach the poll if the character isn’t a royal:

Narradora: Sarah Walker

Minha rotina matinal nos últimos 10 meses têm sido a mesma. Dar um beijo suave na testa em Charles e me direcionar para o banheiro onde escovo meus dentes e tomo um banho demorado ouvindo "Love Hurts, Incubus” da minha playlist Bath Musics.

Após o banho, me sento no sofá da sala e ligo meu laptop apoiando-se no colo e seleciono meus e-mails e notícias mais importantes para uma leitura breve, enquanto aguardo o café da manhã que, minha querida senhora, Danvers - que nos acompanha há 8 anos - prepara sempre com tanto carinho e atenção.

– O café está servido senhora Bartowski, diz Danvers.

Sorrio carinhosamente, - Obrigada Danvers, poderia trazer apenas uma xícara de chá por enquanto? Hoje quero esperar Charles para comermos juntos.

Já com minha xícara quentinha em mãos, tomo meu primeiro gole, sentindo o gosto de hortelã descer delicadamente em minha garganta, enquanto me deparo com algo importante em minha tela, um e-mail de Casey.

Há tempos não nos falamos, muito menos por e-mail, o que me despertou uma curiosidade fora do comum.

O abri imediatamente.

“Querida Sarah, tenho um pedido especial que será necessária sua presença em paris nos próximos dias. Mandarei maiores detalhes em algumas horas. É de extrema urgência, portanto, esteja pronta. Lembranças à Charles. – John.”

Meu coração congelou por um instante, sensação de alegria pelo retorno à ativa, mas um terrível medo de deixar Charles, afinal, não havia nenhuma menção a ele ir nesta missão. Mas o porquê de fato precisa tanto de mim?

Respiro fundo, fecho o laptop e assim que olho para as escadas vejo Charles descendo com sua alegria matinal de dar inveja a qualquer um.