#i mostly get on desktop for comms and if i do much else i feel like im slacking off even if i would take a break anyway | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

victorianoir · 6 years

Note

I’m about to throw a fucking chair because my stupid electronic device is not loading the latest ConVerse chapter. Like I️’ve waited too long to have this problem. I️ want my new chapter NOW. Being denied your writing is making me feel violent FYI. But mostly because you always deliver.

I don’t know if it’s loaded for you yet.....but if not, here’s the chapter! Just for you!

ENJOY!!!

++++

The elevator felt like it was descending to the first floor at an excruciating pace.

She just wanted to get in and then get out again so that they could sell the codes, collect the money, and disappear again. Like always.

But then he ran his hands down his front again, for what had to be the tenth time since they left their hotel room. Though they'd only been working together for a few months, she'd learned a few of his quirks rather quickly, the guy was such an open book. He did this fidgeting with his hands and clothes thing when he was nervous. And he had a tendency to get trapped in his own head. That had been one of her first observations in London when they'd worked that team job with the fraud gambling house.

"Calm down," she chastised, sure to keep any meanness from her voice. He didn't respond well to negativity. That was another thing she'd observed right off the bat.

"Sorry. I know. I am. I'm calm. We're good."

"I'm perfectly fine, but I can feel how tense you are from all the way over here."

He huffed and shrugged. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Just make sure you have everything you need to do in here…" She tapped her temple. "You know your role. Just do it. You're good."

"Nike."

"What?"

His lips twitched a bit as he blinked a few times. "Just do it. Nike."

Sarah gave her partner a look, and then she sighed and shook her head, smirking a little. "Oh, right. This is how you calm down. I almost forgot."

"I know. It's weird."

"Whatever works." She paused. "You got it?"

The elevator hit the ground floor and dinged, the door swinging open.

"I've got it. I'm good. I'm not going to let you down."

He swept out of the elevator first and she stared at his back as she followed. I'm not going to let you down. It was a phrase he'd said before, at least once or twice, and it made her feel a bit uncomfortable. There was this emphasis there that she picked up, especially with this most recent reassurance. She couldn't put her finger on it, but no one she'd ever worked with had ever cared much about whether they let anyone else down or not. They wanted their money and that was it. Nobody liked anybody else. Nobody cared about how anybody else felt. And Chuck simply seemed to break all of the rules.

Sarah had no idea why things were just so different with Chuck. Except that maybe it boiled down to the fact that he was different.

Only about three months had passed since they joined forces. She didn't quite know it yet, but the conman she'd thrown her lot in with had already managed to solidify her trust in him. Throughout the handful of jobs they'd completed so far, he'd done every last bit of his job perfectly, down to the last detail. And now they were at the point where she no longer had to stress about whether his tasks would come off okay, the way she'd always stressed about partners in group situations before. This time, someone did half of her work for her, and she didn't have to worry about anything outside of what she herself had to do. It had never been like that before, not with anyone else. There was always a thread of risk, uncertainty…and she always had to have her own Plan B no one else knew about in case her partners failed.

That just wasn't necessary with Chuck. Any other plans she had, he was in on. It was an escape plan for the both of them. Because she trusted him.

If she'd been aware at that moment just how much trust was really there between them already, it would have freaked her out, unsettled her, and sent her running for the hills.

So it was good she was running over her tasks for the night in her head instead.

"Remember," she said quietly, moving up to walk beside him. "The second I get into the room, it's showtime. I'll set-up the screen share, you do the rest."

"Yep. But remember, I can end the screen share and make it like no one was even in their system without you being there. So the second you set it up, get the hell out of there," he replied.

"I've got the plan, Chuck, thanks." She shut her eyes for a moment, unclenched a bit, and grabbed his arm, stopping him and forcing him to face her. "Sorry." She felt somewhat annoyed with herself that she had to force the apology out. He deserved an apology and it shouldn't be so hard for her to make it when she was in the wrong. What he didn't deserve was her sarcasm in the first place.

She was still trying to get to a place where having a partner, having someone around as often as Chuck was around, felt more normal and less of a burden. When she'd gone an entire decade gloriously alone, it felt a bit like a burden. It was a harsh change, and a sudden one. So she had moments when she got snippy, even if it wasn't his fault.

But she needed him as a partner. Perhaps it was less that she needed him and more that they worked pretty damn well together, and the scores they managed were a lot bigger than the ones she'd been picking up alone. She was the Ice Queen. She didn't need anybody. Not for anything. And she never would.

His smile was slow. "It's okay." And then he made a face. "God, Sarah. Focus on the job."

Chuck walked away with a cheeky look on his face, missing the flash of a grin that swept over her features. It died away again and she rolled her eyes, shaking her head and following after him.

"The door to the computer room has a manual lock, which means you can't hack it open like you can with McLure's office, where I'm going." She swung her knapsack around then and reached into the outer pocket, pulling a lock pick kit out of it and handing it to him. "I got you these. You've been practicing. This is the perfect test but you need the right tools if you're gonna pass said test."

He smiled at her and flipped the leather kit open. "This is pretty dope. Thanks, partner."

She inwardly cringed a bit at the affection with which he called her partner. He did it a lot. And while them doing this whole partnership thing was her idea, she had no intention of letting things get too chummy.

"Every con artist needs a good lock pick." She shrugged, as though she hadn't spent time making sure she got him the best quality picks, with a leather case she thought he might like better than the others she'd had to choose from. Despite not knowing much about his taste or preferences, she hadn't wrung her hands over it at all. (Even though she had.)

"I'll get in," he said with confidence, shoving the kit down the back of his pants and flipping his jacket over it so that no one would see. "And I'll buzz you when I've got your door open."

"Perfect."

When they got to the van, she climbed into the driver's seat and watched as he swung himself up beside her, buckling his seatbelt. "Hey, listen." He turned to look at her, fixing the belt over his chest. "If any part of this goes south—if I don't answer, or you've been seen, or anything else that might happen—just go. Get out, okay?"

"What about you?" he asked.

She shrugged. "What about me? I can handle anything these amateurs throw at me. But it's not worth either of us being killed or tossed in lock-up. Not you and not me. So if you even have the slightest feeling things aren't going well, bounce. Got me?"

As she pulled the van out of the hotel parking lot, she could see him working his jaw out of the corner of her eye. "I got you," he finally said, and he looked out of his window.

That request obviously didn't sit well with him. But she appreciated that he agreed anyway. She knew she could take care of herself. She was packing; a pistol and six throwing knives were hidden on her person. But Chuck had opted to go weaponless; whatever his thing was with guns—because she still hadn't exactly figured that out yet—she wondered how long it would be before it bit him in the ass. Hopefully she wasn't around for it when it did happen.

Either way, this was what she had to work with. Chuck was it.

And if she was honest with herself, he really wasn't all that terrible.

-------

She was almost to the door of McLure's office when Chuck's voice came over the comms for the first time in nearly fifteen minutes. She'd been so focused on sneaking past the guards, keeping to the shadows in the hallway, and minimizing the length of time she spent traversing the corridors with surveillance cameras that she'd nearly forgotten about her partner entirely.

"I'm in the computer room, nice and safe. And McLure's door should be unlocked in 3…2…1." Right as she stepped up to the door, she heard a series of clicks come from it. And as she reached out to turn the handle, it popped open as though it had never been locked in the first place.

"It's unlocked. I'm in McLure's office." She slipped inside and left the door just barely propped open, in case it locked again when it closed. She wasn't taking any chances and she sure as hell wasn't getting locked in FletchTech HQ, waiting for someone to come in and find her.

"Never underestimate the power of Chuck Bartowski with a computer," he teased.

She ignored him, but had to bite her cheek to keep from smirking. She let out a long breath and moved behind the desk that belonged to the tech company's head engineer. "You have a password for me?" she asked as she shook the mouse to wake the desktop computer and password request box popped up.

"One sec."

"I don't have much time, here, Chuck," she whispered. She heard voices down the hall, but luckily they seemed as though they were walking in the other direction, away from where she was. Damn nerds at these tech companies. They were night owls the way she knew Chuck was, working well into the night to finish projects. It was the one risk of hitting a tech company rather than some accounting firm. It hit six o'clock and those number crunchers were gone, leaving the building dark. Coders stayed up all damn night.

"I know, I know…sorry. I just…" His voice lowered. "I thought I heard someone coming. I'm not in the most inconspicuous place in the building."

"Yeah, well, if you were able to access these computers from your laptop in the van, it wouldn't be an issue."

"Hey, these guys aren't gonna make their drives hackable from some outside source, okay? They're almost as good at cyber security as I am at breaking through it. Only way we can screen share is if we're in the same building and I'm using one of the company's computers," he hissed in her ear.

"I know," she said back, clicking the password box. "I'm just getting a bad feeling. Do you have the password?"

"Got it. 5 uppercase E, uppercase K, lowercase u, pound sign, 4423, jemima, all lowercase."

She decided not to comment on Leroy McLure's password including the name Jemima in it, and instead did a small celebratory fist punch when she got in. "It worked. Nicely done."

"A'thank y—Shit."

"What?" Even as she pulled up the site for the screen share, she was on her guard. "What's going on, Chuck? What is it?"

"Nothing, false alarm. I heard voices again. I'm having a bit of a panic attack over here, Sarah. I feel like someone's going to come in at any moment to use one of these computers and they're gonna see me and I'm gonna be totally effed in the a."

"Don't freak out," she said, downloading the screen share program. "In less than a minute, I'll have this downloaded. I'll set up an account, you request me, I'll share, and you go to work. Just like we planned."

"What if they come in here before I can do it?"

"They won't. Just give me a sec."

It downloaded within forty seconds and she created her account: "McLureComp".

"Okay, Chuck, it's up. Where are—?" She stopped as a screen share request popped up from ZiggyStardust. "Is that you?" she asked, making a face.

"Yeah. It's stuck in my head. So where were the spiiiidahs?" he finished in a poor impersonation of Bowie. She shook her head and accepted the request. "Ah. Good. Okay, let me do my thing. Get out of here and I'll take care of the rest."

She hurried to the door again and checked both ways in the hallway before slipping out of the office and easing the door shut, hearing the locks seal once more as she did so. "Let me know when you've encrypted the codes and you're transferring to the laptop, yeah?"

"Got it."

"I'll meet you at the van."

"Aye-aye, captain."

It wasn't easy, but within a few more minutes, Sarah was back in the van they'd parked at the gas station catty-corner to the building she'd just snuck in and out of within half an hour, without being seen. She jumped into the driver's seat and waited…and waited…and waited some bad feeling came back again, she ended up waiting so long.

"Chuck, how's it goin' in there?"

She waited for an answer for a good solid thirty seconds…Nothing.

"Chuck? Is it done? Can you hear me?"

Again, she didn't get a response.

"Shit," she cursed to no one at all. She waited a moment before she tried again. "Chuck, come in. Damn it, answer me."

He didn't, and she was about to yell this time when she heard a scratching sound, and then his voice.

"Hey," he whispered. "Listen. The codes are still sending, I'm leaving it up, and we're just going to have to chance it. But we both need to get out of here. Now."

"What?"

"I'll meet you at the hotel. Probably. I give it about three, four minutes before the transfer is finished, but I have a terrible feeling I'm about to be found. So I need to go. You—Oh, hello there. Fellow night owl, huh? Hehe. I can't work in the day, either, ya know? Gotta get these codes done, though, am I right? So you work through the night often orrrr…? Because, you know, I've never seen you here nights. Weird, us not meeting before now. Crazy…"

He'd been found. He was talking to whoever had found him. And he was doing a horrific job playing it off.

The transfer would be done in a few minutes. All he had to do was stall for that long and she'd have the codes. She was home free. Turn the van on, go back to the hotel, pack up her things, jump on a plane, and she'd be able to sell these codes to get herself a whopping few million. And with the bind Chuck was in, she thought the chances of her having to share that money—go halfsies, as Chuck put it—were pretty slim.

I'm home free.

She turned on the van, grinning. That much money would pay for a long stay on the Maldives. A long vacation with those powdery beaches and the clear blue water. She pictured sitting in one of those small huts over the shallow waters, a refreshing alcoholic beverage in hand.

Home free.

As she pulled out of the gas station parking lot, she repeated that phrase in her head, over and over.

--------

"Who the hell are you?"

"Whaaaaaaaaat? I mean, I work here. Obviously. Pfft." Chuck made a face at the security guard, being as subtle as possible about slipping the jump drive clutched in his fist into his pants pocket.

"What's that? What'd you just put in your pocket?" she asked, pointing.

"Hm? What's that?" He tilted his face up in question as though he hadn't heard her and rubbed his hands down the front of his shirt.

"You heard me. You aren't authorized to be here. So who are you and what are you doing here?"

The conman didn't say anything for a moment, thinking about Sarah, hoping she'd jumped into the driver's seat of that van and was now long gone. As he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that the transfer had completed without a hitch. He let out a relieved breath.

"What's on that computer? Did you do that? Were you doing something on there?"

He winced as he heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being drawn. "You better answer my damn questions right now." She'd raised her voice now and he slowly turned back. "Who are you? What are you doing here? I'm getting my back-up to come up here in five seconds if you don't answer."

"That's not necessary, ma'am. See, I'm here working late."

"Where's your badge then?" He didn't have an answer for that. "You're a liar. What'd you do with that computer? What's that TRANSFER stuff on the screen about? Answer me!"

"Just intra-building communication, ma'am. That's all. Please don't shoot me. I'm just here working."

"I've never seen you before and I work five nights a week, shit bag. I'm calling my guys up here right now."

"No, no. Don't do that. Big Boss Fletcher himself is going to be so super upset with you. See, I'm new here at FletchTech. They haven't made my badge yet."

"You don't get into the building without a badge, fucker."

"Okay, well…language."

"That's it…" She had him by the arm then, swinging him around so that he was in front of her. And she twisted her fist in the back of his shirt just below his neck and marched him out of the room. "No funny business or I'll shoot you. And don't think I won't. In a place like this, a trespasser getting shot is gonna get me a medal of honor. Fletcher's got the money to make sure I don't get in trouble for excessive force. And he takes this place's security very seriously. These geeks do important work. Top secret stuff. I know you're stealing something."

"Stealing? No! I didn't do anything…" he breathed, holding his hands up beside his head. "I was just working."

She pushed him down the hallway, guiding him forcefully in front of her, and as they turned the corner, he had half a mind to at least try to break her hold and get that gun away from her. If he could do that, maybe he could make a break for it.

As they turned another corner, she grabbed him and stopped him, keeping her gun pressed against his spine just under his hairline as she grabbed her walkie-talkie. "This is Reynolds. Do you copy? Found a guy wandering in the computer room, no badge. Suspicious. I've got him on the third floor. Need back-up."

"So listen, I don't see what's so suspicious about using a comput—"

"Shut up!" she snapped, cutting him off.

"Sure, I can do that." He pressed his lips together and nodded. He was starting to sweat now because once her back-up got here, his chance of escaping was gone.

"Goode, do you copy?" she asked again. "I've got a suspicious jackass up here on the third floor."

Chuck repeated "Jackass? C'mon…" and shook his head.

"Found him in the computer room. Goode!" She paused. "Wilson?" Another pause. "What the fuck?" she muttered to herself.

"You know, if that's the battery kind of walkie-talkie, there's a chance it's just dead. The battery, I mean. Happens all the time."

"Shut up."

"Right."

"Goode! Wilson! Do you copy?"

She didn't get a response.

"Lazy asses probably fell asleep at the monitor. I'm taking you down myself then. Like I said, don't try anything, buster. You got it?"

"Totally got it. I'm not a big fan of getting shot, so you can count on me."

She ignored him and made him keep walking. Even though the gun wasn't touching him, he could still feel it, just an inch or so away, like a deadly specter breathing down his neck.

They finally got to the elevator and she shifted to stand next to him, the gun slowly swiveling into view as she did so. "Press the button to call the elevator."

"This really is an incredibly dramatic scene considering I was just doing my job—"

"Press the button unless you want a bullet lodged in your brain."

"That is so violent…" he breathed as he pressed the button.

It was then that he heard the door to the staircase open on the other side of the elevator. "Chuck, get down!"

Without second guessing, he dropped to the floor as two gunshots went off.

"I'm hit! Goode! Wilson! Do you copy? Oh, God!"

Chuck scrambled up to his feet as Sarah's hand closed around his arm and started tugging him towards the staircase. He stared down at the security guard squirming on the floor, having dropped her gun out of reach as she clutched her hand over the gunshot wound on her thigh, cursing up a storm.

Sarah tugged harder. "Let's go, damn it!" she hissed.

He turned and rushed after her then, getting to the door first and swinging it open for her to rush in ahead of him. They scrambled down the stairs, all the way down the three flights, skidding to a stop on the first floor.

Letting Sarah take lead, he sent her a confused look when she stopped at the door. "What is it?" he panted.

"Get the door!" she snapped.

"Oh!"

He sprang forward and opened it for her and it was then that he noticed her arm holding the gun was limp as she grabbed at it with her other hand. Oh no. No no no…

As they scampered past the security desk, Chuck saw two men unconscious on the ground. At least, he hoped they were just unconscious, and he was going to do his best not to think about them ever again. It was for the best.

He scurried past Sarah and shoved at the doors to the roundabout driveway in front of FletchTech HQ, holding it for the con woman. She burst out and they both sprinted out to the main parking lot. He saw the van there, still running, the driver's door wide open. Risky move for his partner to make, leaving it open for car thieves to make an easy steal, he thought to himself, with all of their things, including his laptop with the codes…but it made their getaway all the easier.

Not to mention, if Sarah had been even a few seconds later, who knew what would've happened?

There was a gunshot from behind them then and he staggered, nearly going down as he heard the bullet ricochet off of the pavement right next to his feet, but he kept his footing and kept moving.

"You drive!" Sarah yelled as they neared the van, and she started shooting back towards the building over her shoulder.

"Yep!" He didn't bother glancing back to see if she'd hit the target. Instead he pushed the driver's door open wider so that Sarah could dive inside. And as she haphazardly threw herself over the console into the passenger's seat, ducking low, he climbed into his own seat and slammed the door shut after him.

"GO!" Sarah screamed as they heard more gunshots.

A bullet thunked against the side of the van as he slammed his foot on the acceleration, and they blew out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell. He screeched onto the street and immediately turned down a narrow alley, bursting out of the other side and getting to the freeway as quickly as he possibly could.

It wasn't until they were on the freeway that he slowed a bit to match the regular traffic, attempting to blend into the rest of the cars as though they hadn't just stolen a top secret coding program and been involved in something of a gun fight.

"You okay?" he finally asked, panting as he glanced over at her.

She was wincing, her right hand clamped over her left bicep. Her fingers were covered in blood, he noticed. She looked up at him, wisps of hair that had escaped her bun clinging to her temples with sweat, and she nodded, clenching her teeth.

"Yeah." Her voice was tight, pained. "I've had worse. Just get us to the hotel."

"But, wouldn't a hospital—?"

"No!" she said, sitting up a bit and meeting his gaze with her blue eyes flashing as the lights from the cars going in the opposite direction danced across her face. "No hospitals. No doctors. I can handle it once we get back to the room where I have my first aid kit. It's just a scratch anyway. At least I think so." She winced again, still squeezing her hand over the wound.

It took fifteen minutes for him to pull into the hotel parking lot. At Sarah's request, he drove around to park at the back where the van wouldn't be visible from the street.

He clambered out of the van and rushed around to Sarah, seeing that she was already easing herself out of the passenger's side. She was pale, he noticed as he reached up to grab her by her waist and help her down. And he knew she was in pain, because he imagined she wouldn't have let him do that otherwise. "Let's get you inside."

"Get the laptop first," she breathed, her body pressed close to his.

"But—"

"Really, Chuck, I'm fine. But we need to bring that laptop with us."

He nodded and slid the back door of the van open. He reached in to close the laptop, slip it into the messenger bag, and sling the strap over his shoulder. Just as he was about to close the door, he caught sight of his windbreaker on the floor of the van. He grabbed it and slid the door shut, rushing to Sarah's side and, as carefully as he could, wrapping the windbreaker around Sarah's shoulders. He tugged it shut at the front.

"In case anyone sees us," he explained as she shot him a questioning look. "Don't want them to see a woman with a gunshot wound. We'd have the police at our door in no time."

She nodded, letting him lead her away from their van and through the walkway into the courtyard in the middle of the hotel. He waited until he saw no one else was around before he guided her through the courtyard to the elevators.

As he caught her eye, he added a quick, "Also it's kinda cold."

----------

"Sorry!"

She clenched her jaw in pain, shaking her head. "S'okay," she forced out through her teeth. "Make sure you get it as tight as you can…" He yanked from where he sat on a chair across from her spot on the bed and she let out a pained, "Ah! But don't cut off my circulation!"

"Sorry!"

He loosened it a bit and then tied off the bandage. "Okay, how's that?" he asked.

Sarah let herself slump to the side then, lying on her right arm, which didn't have a bullet hole in it. Thank God. She groaned and turned her face into the bed. "It's good. Perfect."

He sighed in relief. "Good."

"Where did you learn that trick with the tweezers?" she asked, then, her eyes slipping shut.

Thoughts of his sister went through his mind, the image of her kneeling over his best friend and picking pieces of glass and granite out of the bearded fellow's bloodied knees after that bad bike accident. And he took a moment to allow himself to miss Ellie Bartowski. In spite of the mean things she'd sometimes said to Morgan after years of dealing with his blatant and consistently unsuccessful pursuit of her heart, she'd been incredibly kind to him, comforting him even as she dug deep to get a particularly nasty shard of glass out. As Chuck winced and tried to keep Morgan from passing out at the sight of the blood, Ellie calmly explained she'd done the same thing for a police officer just a few days earlier when he'd been shot on the job. She'd quietly voiced her technique…And as Chuck had plucked the bullet from its shallow spot in Sarah's arm, he'd heard his big sister's voice, calm and reassuring in his head, going through the process step by step.

"Chuck?"

He shook himself and looked down. Sarah still had her eyes shut.

"Oh. Uh. Just something you pick up on the job, I guess. Sorry I couldn't help stitch it up, though. I've never learned to sew, unfortunately."

To his surprise, she smiled, letting out a soft, tired chuckle. And her eyes opened again. "It's okay. I've had to do it before. On my hip," she breathed. "I'd show you the scar, but it's a little low."

The conman swallowed thickly as her eyes fluttered shut again. "Ha," he let out weakly.

"Thank you," she said quietly then.

He paused for a few seconds, looking down at the blood smeared on his hands. And as he picked up the nearby wet cloth to wipe the blood off, he stared at her until her eyes opened again and met his.

"Thank you."

She pushed herself to sit up and blew the hair out of her face. "Don't. You don't have to do that."

"What? Thank you? For saving my life? At the very least, for keeping me from going to prison?"

Sarah shook her head as though the conversation was over, but he clamped his hand down over her right wrist, the good one, and held tight.

"Hey, no. I'm serious. Thank you, Sarah." He paused. "Why'd you come back? I transferred the codes successfully. They were on my laptop already. You could've left. You would've gotten away safely. It would've been so easy."

He didn't let her break his gaze for a while, hoping for a straight answer, but knowing there was a good chance he wouldn't get one. Not to mention the fact that the copious amounts of pain drugs he'd given her to take the bullet out looked to be making her pretty woozy and ready to sleep.

Chuck had just been so sure she'd leave. He wouldn't have judged her if she had. It wouldn't been so simple for her to have just left him there to fend for himself. Any con artist would've done it. She'd told him to do the same thing to her before they even got to FletchTech HQ.

She swallowed and shrugged. "The transfer…it looked like it didn't work. The screen said something about…I don't know…it was something. I didn't get it. I-I don't remember. But I don't think it worked. You have to look and check. And I went back into the building because your comm was broken or something. You weren't responding and we needed those codes. Thought I might get you to start the transfer again, I guess."

"It doesn't matter," he said, shaking his head, fighting the spike of disappointment. He'd thought maybe it was something else. Something inside of her that had willed her to go back. Some goodness she valiantly attempted to hide away. But he knew—he knew it was there. He could see it in spite of everything.

"It doesn't matter?" She scoffed. "Chuck, that code bullshit is probably going to sell on the black market for millions of—"

"No, of course it matters." He gently steadied her with a hand on her good arm as she swayed a bit. She was fading fast. "I just mean, the laptop transfer was Plan B." She frowned in confusion. "Or maybe it was Plan A, and the jump drive was Plan B. Either way, I've got it all here." He fished in his pocket and pulled the drive out. "I wasn't sure if it could do both at the same time, but it did. We're in the clear." He paused, pouting a bit while looking at the wound he'd bandaged up. "Except for that arm of yours." "It's gonna be fine," she said, brushing his concern off. "Like I said, I've had worse. But, uh, you have it all on there, you said?" she asked, gesturing to the drive sitting in his palm.

"Yeah. Easy-peasy."

She gaped at him for a moment, her face unreadable, and then she let out a soft sound of amusement…or was it awe? She shook her head, a small smile growing on her face. Then she giggled. It was deep, melodious…and unfortunately, altogether too sexy for their current situation.

And before he knew it, her fist was tangled in the front of his shirt and she yanked him towards her as she threw her body forward. Their lips met in the middle, their faces clashing almost painfully. And as her mouth opened over his, he blinked his shock away and kissed her back. Just as he really started to get into it, he felt her body become heavier, and then she slid down his torso, her face landing on his thigh. Thank God it was just his thigh.

He let out a long breath and shut his eyes for a moment to collect himself. And then he pushed her hair away from her face, his fingers tender as they lightly stroked over her temple and brow. Even passed out from the pain and a heavy dose of medication, her hair falling out of her bun and a bloodied bandage on her arm, she was the most beautiful damn person he'd ever seen in his life.

And as he gently collected her in a safe embrace and properly deposited her onto the bed, taking the time to take her boots and socks off before covering her with the duvet, Chuck silently wished when she awoke the next morning, whenever that may be, that she didn't remember kissing himAs much as it'd pain him to be the only one who remembered it, as much as it meant to him to feel the intimacy in the way her palm had spread open on his chest, right over his heart, or that thrill in his chest as he realized he'd impressed her, he wouldn't be able to handle her pulling away the next morning. It would hurt so much worse if she was upset about it, stand-offish, awkward. And anyway, she was drugged out of her mind. It couldn't mean anything.

As he hobbled over to the door and made sure all of the locks were secure, he cleaned up from their impromptu operation on her arm and stepped into the shower.

The water beat against his head and he decided to just stand there letting it, wondering what harm it would do if he allowed himself to assume that Sarah had come back for him, and not the code. It felt better, in spite of the empty knowledge that it was most likely a lie.

But at the end of the day, he wanted to feel better, at least enough for him to fall asleep.

So as he cuddled up in one of the plush chairs by the window, draping his feet over the second chair he set up for his makeshift bed, he imagined Sarah in the van, struggling against her conscience, deciding to save him, him and not the codes that'd bring them millions of dollars…

Because they were partners.

He was her partner.

#HOPE THIS WORKS!!!#ConVerse #Chuck Versus the Con Game #Anonymous

0 notes