Chuck's Terrible, Awful, No Good, Very Bad Week
The drive from Echo Park to the Large Mart Plaza was a silent one, neither Chuck, nor Sarah were all that interested in talking, albeit for different reasons. Chuck wasn't interested in getting rejected again today, she'd been rather blunt about it at Casey's apartment. After Bryce's surprise visit earlier in the week, and then her rejection this morning, Chuck was even more convinced of his decision to make a very specific call later this afternoon. He hadn't made the call in a long time, but given everything that was happening in his life, he needed a night, just one single night.
Bryce had dropped in unannounced, earlier in the week for a mission, he'd needed their help stopping a bomb threat at the Twentieth Annual Los Angelis International Defense Summit, which was held every year at the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills. Chuck had expected that Bryce needed the help of the Intersect, but that was not to the case. Bryce made it very clear from the outset that he needed a female agent he could trust, to help him go under cover at the summit. Beckman and Graham saw the urgency of the mission and quickly whored Sarah out to Bryce Fucking Larkin like a cheap hooker. Days for Chuck, were spent behind a computer, down in the future base of operations for Team Intersect, that was going to be codenamed Castle; though it was still under considerable construction at the moment.
All Chuck did all day while Bryce and Sarah were actively out and about, was watch camera feeds from the hotel with Casey; while Bryce and Sarah mingled throughout the hotel, it was just a continual stream of tedium and boredom for Chuck and Casey. Chuck would give advice and information to Bryce and Sarah; Sarah would usually take his feedback and thank him, Bryce would usually disagree or subtly belittle him by telling Chuck to leave the spying to the
real
agents. Chuck could see that it was getting on Casey's nerves listening to Bryce's shots at Chuck, but Sarah never said a thing, nothing at all, radio silence from Team Intersect's CIA Agent turned NSA Captain.
Eventually after three days and nights at the Waldorf as the
Andersons
, Bryce and Sarah determined that the threat was a complete bust
and a waste of fucking time
; the summit concluded without a problem, and Sarah returned to her previous duties with Team Intersect. Down in Castle after the mission had concluded, the debrief was ice cold between Sarah, Chuck, Casey, and Bryce. Sarah was distant towards everyone during the debrief before she left to go start her Wienerlicious shift. The Wienerlicious was going to be closed and converted into a government owned and operated front for Sarah to work in, but that work hadn't started yet, so the only way in and out of Castle was through the emergency access tunnel behind the Large Mart. Casey left the debrief without a word not long after Sarah had and left for work at the Buy More. With his handlers now gone, Chuck was left alone with Bryce. Chuck stood from his seat to leave when he heard Bryce's voice.
"Chuck," The Nerd Herd Supervisor stopped and turned to face Bryce with a flat expression on his face. Chuck waited for his former roommate to speak as he himself spoke in a disinterested voice.
"What is it?" Bryce was obviously taken aback by Chuck's coldness, but he hid his shock quickly.
"You did good these last couple days; for someone without training, you're good at this whole spy thing," Bryce said with a quiet chuckle, Chuck simply huffed in frustration and shook his head; after everything that Bryce had said to him all week, he was complimenting him? It wasn't even really a compliment, it was another insult, a passive-aggressive slap in the face masquerading as a compliment.
"I think I'm just going to let the
real spies
handle it Bryce," Chuck said before he turned and left to go start his crappy shift at the Buy More. Bryce simply stood there silently before he looked down at his hands and nodded to himself. The sound of the door opening and closing signaled that Bryce was alone, like always.
That had been two days ago, since then things had gotten close to normal for Team Intersect, but things were still rather icy between Sarah and himself. He'd thought they were in a good place, but after her rejection this morning, he just didn't know anymore.
For Sarah, the last week had been an exercise in frustration, her asshole ex-boyfriend had showed up out of freaking nowhere and suddenly she was his partner again until his mission was complete. The way her bosses had talked to Larkin about it made her feel cheap, like a tool, like her only value was how she could assist him, how she could
service
him today. Bryce needed arm candy, but said arm candy needed to be arm candy he could trust, arm candy that wouldn't let him down in a fight, but arm candy nonetheless. Bryce needed a set of tits that could shoot a gun and not get him killed; apparently Sarah Walker was his first choice in that department, as degrading and insulting as it was.
Couple that with the way her ex had treated her new team and Sarah had been in a sour mood all damn week. Relegating a fantastic agent like John Casey to the sidelines because Bryce was glory hunting was inexcusable. That wasn't even mentioning Bryce's treatment of Chuck, which was downright outrageous. Chuck was a trusted member of the team, he wasn't just a computer that you plug into the wall, to use whenever you want. Bryce would choose when to take Chuck's intel; Chuck was the fucking intersect, his intel was always accurate. That wasn't even to mention the near constant putdowns that Bryce would send Chuck's way when Sarah couldn't do anything to correct him.
She was out in the field, where people were watching, so she couldn't be getting after her supposed husband for his putdowns of the man in his ear and Bryce knew it. Sarah knew that Bryce felt threatened by Chuck, but that wasn't an excuse to insult him and hurt his newly growing confidence. The worst of it was having to fawn all over Bryce like a brainless newlywed, it made Sarah feel cheap, it made her want to vomit. The times by the pool where he'd put sun screen on her back made her skin crawl; she wanted Chuck's hands on her, not Bryce's slimy fingers! It had only been the first day, but his proposal to share the bed on the first night was the last damn straw for Sarah, she'd rather sleep naked, in an Iraqi prison, then share a bed with Bryce Larkin ever again. She'd slept on the damn couch for three days instead. Her rejection of his advances that first night had set the tone for things from there, the putdowns had intensified, his blatant efforts to get under her skin had intensified. Sarah didn't know what Bryce's problem was, but if she never had to work with him again, it would be too fucking soon.
When she'd gotten back to Burbank, her poor Chuck looked so sad, he'd had to sit there and watch her fawn all over Bryce, his arch nemesis if Morgan was to be believed, and she did believe him. She couldn't say much of anything to Chuck, because of the ever-present cameras that caught every little thing they said to each other. She had to simply let him believe that she enjoyed Bryce's attention, that she liked Bryce maybe more than she liked Chuck. Couple that with this morning and she really felt bad about how she'd been treating him. There weren't any microphones or cameras in her Porsche, so this was her chance to say something. Sarah could see the Large Mart Plaza coming up, so she spoke quickly; Sarah sounded far more nervous than she'd intended, and her words had far less meaning behind them than she'd hoped.
"I'm sorry," Sarah said quickly, Chuck simply looked sideways at Sarah, but said nothing. "I was rude earlier and I'm sorry," Sarah said quietly, Chuck simply snorted softly and shook his head to himself.
"It's fine Sarah, I get that protecting the cover is the priority; it won't happen again, I promise," Chuck said as Sarah pulled into the Large Mart Plaza and made her way over towards the Buy More. Chuck's words hurt Sarah, she'd hurt him bad with her rejection and he wasn't ready for an apology, especially a halfhearted apology like the one she'd just offered up.
"No, it's not that, I just..." Sarah began, before Chuck cut in.
"You don't have to apologize Sarah; it was wrong of me to put you on the spot like that, and it won't ever happen again," Chuck said to Sarah with hurt in his voice, he was closed off from her; Sarah had never seen Chuck put walls up, but that's what he'd just done. Now seeing how it must have felt for Chuck all those times where she'd put her walls up and rejected him, Sarah had a new appreciation for how he'd felt all those times. She could see in his eyes that he was hurt too much for anything less than the full admission from Sarah, something she couldn't give him.