| Chuck fic: The Dangers of Boredom |
[Nov. 9th, 2007|04:02 am] |
I am trying out Chuck fic. I think I might like it. 
I also have no Chuck icons. I need to fix that.
Fandom: Chuck
Pairing: Bryce Larkin/John Casey, Bryce/Chuck
Rating: R
Notes: Spoilers through Chuck Versus The Alma Mater.
i.
The first time John meets Bryce, there are guns, a car explosion, and a rather impressive building collapse. John is covered in dust, blood (95% not his), and orange juice (don't ask). Bryce looks perfect, like he has just gone for a walk in the park and not just narrowly averted World War III. He shakes John's hand and gives him the most delighted grin John has ever seen like this is all just some fun game they are playing.
John thinks, "This guy is fucking insane," and then, "I think I might be a little bit in love."
ii.
At seven-years-old Bryce creates the world's greatest paper airplane. He has no way of testing this assertion, but he's confident his plane can fly farther and faster then any other paper airplane in the world.
The plane has its first test run during math. The teacher is doing subtraction on the chalkboard. Bryce already knows fractions and long division and is incredibly bored.
Just as Bryce is about to release the plane from his hand, Jonathan who sits behind Bryce and who probably eats paste, though Bryce doesn't have any proof of this, chooses that exact moment to kick Bryce's chair. Bryce's hand slips and the plane goes flying with impressive speed and accuracy straight into Jessica's eye.
As Jessica screams and cries way more than a paper airplane in the eye really warrants and Mrs. Meyers, who is an actual witch (Bryce is really close to getting proof of this) demands to know who flew the plane into poor Jessica's eye, Bryce thinks that there's a lesson he should be learning from this. He just can't figure out what it is.
iii.
Spies are never as drunk as they appear. It's a rule you learn quickly as a spy or you're out of the game pretty fast. And by out of the game John means dead like that one guy in the Yucatan who fell for the “I'm just an incredibly hot drunken tourist, won't you share this bottle of tequila with me?” trick. What an idiot. It had taken them a week just to find all his body parts. A monkey had tried to make off with his hand. John hates monkeys. He also hates idiots.
John hates a lot of things. Prague in December is high on the list and he would have tried to get out of this assignment, but it involves Bryce Larkin, so John grumbled and said, “Fine, I'll fucking go to Prague,” and tried his best not to look too excited.
Bryce is currently sitting at the hotel bar looking drunk off his ass, but John just rolls his eye as he sits down next to Bryce. Bryce does almost everything perfectly, but he's terrible at playing drunk. Drunks rarely actually sway in their chair like that.
Bryce smiles at him and then throws his arm around John and says loudly, “I just shot two men in the face,” and starts to giggle.
John quickly clamps a hand over Bryce's mouth and actually looks at him for the first time. He looks slightly less perfect than he usually does. His suit is rumpled, his shirt is partially unbuttoned, his eyes are blood shot, and the deep circles under his eyes suggest that it's been days since he's actually slept. Maybe he really is drunk.
“Why don't we go to your room,” John suggests, pulling at Bryce's arm. He gives the bartender his friendliest smile, a large tip, and hopes that he hasn't understood a word they've been saying.
Bryce obediently leads John to his room, staggering and weaving, but eventually getting them to the right door. John shoves him inside, slams the door, and yells, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Bryce ignores him and sprawls out on his bed. John tries to ignore him. He's not interested in drunken washed out spies. He can't believe he came to Prague for this.
“Have you ever been in love?” Bryce asks. John wants to punch a wall. The only thing worse than a drunken washed out spy is a drunken washed out spy with relationship issues. John assumes that Bryce is talking about his partner who is hot, blond, and from all reports really good at her job. John really wishes she was here instead of this idiot.
“Well have you?” Bryce asks again.
John falls in love several times a day with big guns, watches that conceal explosives, knives that have the perfect edge, sometimes he even falls in love with people, but generally it passes pretty fast and John goes on with his life. He's pretty sure this isn't the type of love Bryce is talking about.
“No,” John says.
“I was in love once,” Bryce begins. And John knows that he's going to start one of those long rambling drunken stories about love lost that usually ends in tears. John wonders if would be acceptable procedure to punch Bryce in the face and spare them both the pain and humiliation.
But instead of a story, suddenly John has Bryce right in his face. He smells like smoke and cheap beer. John wrinkles his nose. He hates the smell of smoke.
“Love is overrated,” Bryce enunciates carefully and then he's kissing John, sloppy, but surprisingly good for a drunk.
John thinks about pushing him away, but Bryce is acting pathetic, and rejecting him would be like kicking a puppy, and despite the rumors, John doesn't actually kick puppies for fun. Besides, this is way better than any sob story Bryce was going to tell.
As Bryce steers John over to bed, for a moment John thinks that Bryce is pretty steady on his feet for drunk, but then Bryce pushes him down on the bed and starts fumbling with the buttons on John's pants and John thinks that maybe this trip to Prague is going to be worthwhile after all.
iv.
Bryce is good at keeping secrets. He's always been good at keeping secrets, but now it's part of his job description. He knows government secrets and the secret of how to kill a man in less than two seconds, but the greatest secret Bryce has is that Chuck Bartowski is his first friend.
Bryce had been popular in high school. Everyone had wanted to be friends with him, but Bryce had just been bored. They had all assumed that Bryce liked entertaining everyone, but really he had just thought it would be nice if every once in a while they could all entertain themselves and leave him alone.
Chuck is different. Chuck is interesting. It was Chuck's idea to play assassins with water guns in the library. It's nice to finally have someone around to entertain Bryce. Chuck always loses their games, but at least he makes life interesting. Bryce tells himself that it's gratitude that makes Bryce push Chuck against the wall of the fourth floor stacks and blow him. Almost no one comes up here anyway and, besides, everything is much more fun when there's a little risk involved. Chuck isn't complaining. He's just staring at Bryce in dazed wonderment like Bryce is the best thing ever. Normally Bryce hates that look on people. It's the look of someone who is expecting Bryce to entertain them, but he might make an exception for Chuck.
But then Chuck grins in absolute delight and says, “This is the best game ever. I'm so glad I came up with it!”
Bryce grins back and thinks that it's possible he's falling in love.
v.
John wakes up naked and tied to the bed.
Bryce is sitting next to him, laptop in his lap, carefully reading something on the screen. He is perfectly dressed and entirely not hung over.
“Motherfucker!” John shouts.
“Morning!” Bryce says cheerfully.
“You little shit!” John shouts again.
“Didn't anyone ever tell you that no spy is ever as drunk as they appear?” Bryce asks.
John glares at him and then tries to see what Bryce is reading on his laptop. He's pretty sure it's the classified information that John was carrying on a jump drive on his key chain. They were supposed to be passing the information on, not looking it.
Bryce closes the laptop and gets off the bed, giving John an affection pat on the face.
“Are you going to untie me?” John growls.
“No, I don't think that would work for me,” Bryce says as he packs up the laptop and head for the door.
“Why are you doing this?” John demands.
Bryce pauses by the door and opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it again and frowns like maybe he doesn't really know the answer to the question. “I think because I'm bored. Really fucking insanely bored,” Bryce says with a glint in his eye that John doesn't like at all. He gives John a cheerful grin and a wave good-bye.
As John tries to untie himself and figure out some way to come out this situation not looking like an idiot, he thinks two things: one, it's possible that he's fallen in love with Bryce Larkin again, and, two, this is not going to end well. |
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