fojee

Previous parts: 1, 2, 3

Chuck vs. the NSA Agent
by Fojee
Disclaimer in first chapter.

4/?

Lily Rose did not mean to be a cliché; she wasn’t a prostitute with a heart of gold. Unless the gold was something you could pawn off so she could finally pay off her student loans, plus some extra for say, a new pair of Jimmy Choos. But well, she was used to sleeping with rich, sleazy guys. She had a script, and it was easy enough to follow.

Charles “Call me Chuck” Bartowski was at the opposite end of the sleazy spectrum.

He took her to a small club—not someplace she frequented, but it was familiar enough to her, though she had to pretend to look around like it was all new—and after a drink, she pulled him to the dance floor. At first, it was like following the script. She extended her wiles, like they were tentacles slowly wrapping around him. His ears reddened and he laughed at all her jokes, and he didn’t cop a feel. Sweet guys were rare enough in her kind of business that she was enjoying herself for a change.

She was waiting for the big dude who hired her to show up, so when someone tapped her on the back, she was still smiling when she turned and met Erik’s intense gaze.

Erik Pinter: ex-client, and currently blacklisted. He was rich enough to afford repeat visits, but he had a tendency to be extra clingy afterwards. And then the phone calls started, the niggling feeling of being followed at night, and things in her apartment started disappearing. One day, Lily Rose found him standing in her living room going through her mail, and she slapped a restraining order on him so hard it caused an earthquake.

His hand was still gripping her shoulder, and he had an expression of such malevolence on his face that she stepped back right onto Chuck’s toes.

“Hey, dude, back off,” Chuck said, dislodging Erik’s grip. He had automatically placed himself between her and this new guy, using his height to his advantage, since he wasn’t really the intimidating type.

“Lily’s mine,” the guy said, loud enough to be heard over the music.

“Who?” Chuck turned to his date. “I thought your name was Sandra?”

Oh shit. Lily Rose thought, before shoving Erik to the ground and grabbing Chuck’s hand to pull him outside. “I’ll explain later,” she shouted, even as she negotiated the crowd expertly, heading straight for the employee exit through the back.

Chuck would have wondered why she seemed to know the place she said she’d never been to before, but he was still stuck on the fake name. They were back in her car when he finally got enough wind to ask, “So, Sandra?”

She spared a glance at him. “It’s complicated, Chuck. I appreciate you standing up for me like that, but well, I don’t really deserve it.” Her pale green eyes were loaded with guilt.

Her words left Chuck even more confused. “First of all, which is it? Lily or Sandra?”

She bit her lip. “Actually, it’s neither,” she admitted. “I just got used to working under different names, that’s all.”

“Oh my god, you’re a spy!” And his face broke into a big smile. Just then her phone began to ring.

“I am not a spy, Chuck,” she had time to say before she answered the call. It was Big Dude, who proceeded to insult her. It was the perfect ending to a rollercoaster night and she hung up on him, and tried very hard not to throw her phone out the window.

She stopped the car at a road just overlooking the freeways, and popped the lock open. “I’m not a spy,” she said again. “But I’m starting to think you are. And I just cannot afford to get involved. I’m sorry. Please get out.”

Stunned, Chuck could only obey. She sped off without another word. He turned towards the railing, looking out into the city, contemplating how bizarre his night had been and how not ready he is to date again, when the thing happened again.

All day, he had been getting some weird flashes triggered by something he heard on the radio or television, or even a building. It was weird. He got some big image, something innocuous like apple pie, and then they zoomed closer to other images, and he suddenly knew things that he didn’t know before. It was like his brain was being hijacked. So was his mouth. So he turned around and babbled to the first guy he saw, “They’re gonna kill him, General Stanfield, the NATO guy, at the peace talks there, at that hotel. There’s this Serbian demolitions expert in town, and I saw him buy things to make a bomb.”

Major John Casey frowned at the target’s dilated pupils. Bartowski didn’t seem to notice he had a gun pointed at him. He held up a hand to signal his team to step back, before he holstered his weapon and grabbed the kid’s arms. “Tell me everything.”

“No time!” Chuck practically shouted. “We have to go stop him.” He looked around as if looking for a cab.

Casey manhandled him to the van. “Where to, boss?” His driver asked.

“--- Hotel. And step on it,” he growled.

Chuck turned to him, as if seeing him for the first time. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, “he whispered. “I’m suddenly getting these…” And he waves a hand around his head, as if shooing flies.

Casey, smooth as silk, or so he liked to think, introduced himself “Major John Casey, NSA” and diverting the target from revealing more classified details that the rest of his team aren’t supposed to know. “We’ll figure it out, okay. Our priority right now is stopping this terrorist. Can you tell me any more details about him?”

And he quizzed Bartowski for the rest of the ride, coaxing details from him. His voice was low enough that the rest of his men couldn’t hear him, but Kane was sitting on the other side, and Casey could see his friend and teammate stiffening at the classified information falling out of Bartowski’s mouth. This required a little more delicate handling than he was used to.

They parked as close to the entrance as possible, and Casey would have loved to keep Bartowski in the car away from the danger. But the truth was, he didn’t know this Serbian bastard by sight, didn’t know his M.O. at all. And that could cost them time they didn’t have. He got his men to call for a bomb squad and secure the exits and then he growled into Bartowski’s ear, “You stick with me no matter what, okay?”

Bartowski nodded. Good boy. Casey grinned like a shark. He lived for this.