[Fic] Chuck vs. Sugar Bear

[themaskedmckay]

Title: Chuck vs. Sugar Bear
Author: themaskedmckay
Rating: Gen
Fandom: Chuck
Characters: Chuck, Casey
Words: 3,694
Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.
Summary: Chuck plays a prank on Casey that leads to a surprising confession.
Spoilers: Season Two finale.
Author's Notes: Going with the idea of Team Bartowski being relocated to the Orange Orange for season three and Chuck's development after the events of the season two finale.


Casey wiped down the counters, as if they got dirty overnight, and arranged the display of different sized cups and the coloured spoons. He had a plywood sandwich board ready to go out on the sidewalk when he opened up shop advertising their latest flavour; Razzleberry.

He liked working at the Orange Orange and that surprised him. He had never pictured himself as the servile sort so maybe his experience at the Buy More had helped ease him into food services. Maybe it had to do with how impeccably clean the food industry in general, and Orange Orange corporate in particular, required the store to be.

Shiny white, spotless orange, and gleaming stainless steel made him feel... clean inside and out. It gave him a sense of peace and order working at the Buy More never had.

His coworkers were marginally more tolerable, too. "Morning, Casey!" Chuck bounced through the door, Orange Orange official cap, tank top, and cargo shorts already on and perfectly crisp; a pair of orange Chuck Taylors finished the look. He didn't look like a slacker anymore, more like a perky camp counsellor. Casey couldn't decide which was more annoying but he did miss the Nerd Herd tie; or rather he missed fantasizing about stringing Chuck up by his tie.

"Hn," Casey replied while he counted the float in the register.

"Good morning, Chuck!" Chuck said in his pseudo-Casey, gruff voice, "How's my bestest bud? Did you have a good night's rest? Ready to sell," Chuck read the sandwich board, "Razzleberry froyo to the masses?" He looked at Casey who was now glowering at the handful of quarters he was counting, "Really? 'Razzleberry'? That almost sounds appetizing, unlike last week's 'Avacarbo' which was, I might point out, absolutely disgusting."

No answer from Casey, who dutifully jotted down the value of the quarters he had just counted and moved on to the dimes, meant Chuck had to fill the conversational vacuum. "So, is Sarah here yet? I still can't believe we get to all work together! Is she downstairs? Did the new cars get here yet? Why are you wearing your hoodie? It's like, a hundred degrees outside!"

Casey silently counted to seven then gave up, "She's downstairs. Why don't you go..." Pester, bother, annoy, torture, "..check in with her?"

"Okay, but first," Chuck squeezed past Casey and flipped a large frozen yogurt cup off the counter into a his hand, "I think I'll sample the new flavour!"

"Knock yourself out," Casey said as he finished counting the till's float.

"Do you mean that figuratively or literally?"

"Whichever keeps you quieter."

"Funny guy," Chuck said with a narrowed-eyed glance as he finished his yogurt off with a swirl and started spooning toppings on top, "Do you think Oreo crumbs and chocolate chips will go good with Razzleberry?"

"I think we're going to start jogging an extra mile every morning if you keep abusing the toppings," Casey said. Chuck was entirely too perky this morning; obviously that meant he wasn't being pushed hard enough during their early morning workouts.

"Really?" Chuck schooled his face into a carefully blank expression and held a gummi bear up so Casey could see, "I think my breakfast needs a wee, sugar bear on top."

A warning growl started deep in Casey's chest when Chuck casually mentioned the nick name Ilsa, the love of Casey's life, had given Casey.

"What was that, Mr. Sugar Bear? You don't want to sit in a cup of frozen yogurt? Well," Chuck smiled; at least, his lips pulled back from his teeth and stretched into what could be a smile, if it didn't look so wicked, "How about I just do this." Chuck bit the head off the sugar bear and chewed with exaggerated jaw movement, "Om nom nom nom." He struck a thoughtful pose, his index finger against his chin, "Hm, I thought he'd taste bitter."

"Five, six, seven, eight..." Casey ground the numbers out between clenched teeth. Chuck clued in and ran for the back room and the secret door that led to Castle.
---

Casey was stuck manning the counter all morning while Chuck and Walker went over intel together. Chuck was supposed to flash on something useful but he was probably busy trying to look down Walker's shirt instead.

A group of teenage girls entered the store, five of them, dressed in whatever was trendy at the moment and giggling to each other when they saw it was Casey behind the counter. He could hear them whispering about his muscles and how scary he could be. He smirked. Unlike Chuck, Casey didn't flirt with the girls that came into the store. He wasn't unfriendly, per se, just very polite. And he didn't hand out free samples for the 'cuties' either.

"Welcome to Orange Orange, what can I get for you today?"

"Ummmm... I'll have a Peach Passion!" He started to add frozen peach slices to
the yogurt press when she added, "OH! And I want some sugar bears on top." Casey's eye twitched; 'sugar bears'? He was going to kill Chuck.

"Oooh, I want sugar bears on mine, too!"

"Me three, please!"

"Chocolate froyo with sugar bears for meeeee."

And it wasn't just that first group of girls. Every teen that came into the shop, and make no mistake, the Orange Orange was popular at lunch time with the teens from the high school down the street, wanted 'sugar bears' on their frozen yogurt. They were the new 'thing' to get.

Casey dished up the orders to spec, quietly seething inside, while maintaining a friendly, if distant, outward appearance. But the primal part of his customers' brains could sense an angry predator and they didn't loiter long after receiving their orders.

It had to have been Chuck who taught them all to order 'sugar bears' instead of 'gummi bears'. Letting him know had been the point of this morning's conversation, hadn't it? Was it a prank? Revenge for something? You had to watch Bartowski, he played like he was all sunshine and unicorn farts but he had a vindictive, bitchy streak a mile wide under that brilliant smile.

Hm, he did order Chuck to man the store all day yesterday while he and Walker dealt with an issue above Chuck's current pay grade. Yeah, that was probably it. Casey could see Chuck, bored and pissed off, telling everyone that came in the store the trendy new name for gummi bears was 'sugar bears'.

Of course, it could be anything. It could be a grudge harboured for months before Chuck found the perfect payback; years even. Look how long he'd obsessed over Larkin.

Casey ground his teeth together then tried to make himself stop; he chewed through nocturnal mouth guards like they were candy and his dentist was starting to get shirty with him over it. He'd find out, eventually, what this 'sugar bear' nonsense was about.

And if Chuck wanted to start something with him, that was fine. Casey'd been playing games for a lot longer than Chuck had; and he was better at them.
---

Sarah came up to relieve him shortly after the lunch rush ended. Casey was sweeping the floors to keep himself busy. His movements were controlled and precise. Dirt was the enemy. Don't kill Chuck. Dirt was the enemy. Don't suffocate Chuck.

"Hey Casey," Sarah called out to him. "Ready for a break?" He stopped sweeping and gave her a sharp look; no visible hickeys. He honestly didn't care if Walker was sleeping with Bartowski but if they were doing it on the clock he'd bust both their skulls open.

"Yeah," he leaned the broom up against the garbage bin and moved his head back and forth to loosen the tension in his neck. "It's about time, too. Any luck this morning?"

"No, I'll let Chuck fill you in. Oh! Would you mind picking up lunch for all of us?" Casey let her know with a look how much he didn't care for being an errand boy. Her smile faltered, "I just thought you'd like to get out of the store for a while?"

"Uh-huh."

"Chuck was thinking sandwiches from Lou's?"

"He was, was he?"

"I could go..."

"No," Casey let his features relax and he smiled with as much warmth as he could stomach faking. Sarah instinctively backed up a step. His eyes glittered like ice in the sunlight, "I'd be happy to."

Lou's was off-limits to Bartowski after he botched it badly with her; both as an asset and as a boyfriend. Lou wouldn't even let Chuck's friends order for him. She had kept the Bartowski sandwich on the menu but she'd added sour pickles to the ingredients. Casey thought it improved the flavour.

"Hey Lou," Casey said when he walked in the door. Walker would have been kicked out nearly as fast as Bartowski but Lou must have sensed a kindred spirit in Casey because he'd managed to work his way into a sort of truce with her; even if she did still think he was an undercover health inspector.

"John," she nodded levelly. "Come to get a sandwich for yourself or for him."

Casey smiled and this time he didn't have to fake it. It was nice to see someone cultivate a grudge against Bartowski when there was cause for it; most of the morons around here were entirely too forgiving. "Myself, him, and her." She made a disgusted noise,

"I should spit in their sandwiches."

"Hey, I'm not watching what you're doing," he said with a shrug.

She smiled back at him, "That's what I like about you, John. You may be his friend but you don't shelter him like the other morons."

Heh, she called them 'morons'. He could really get to like this girl. "How's about you make me a Sour Bartowski and I'll let you get creative with the other two? Sarah hates olives, by the way."

"Tapenade on her sandwich it is, then!"

"And Lou, you mind writing something special on Chuck's sandwich for me?"
---

It was cruel, but funny if you had the right sense of humour. Casey chewed thoughtfully while Bartowski stared slack-jawed, eyes unfocussed, down at his wrapped up sandwich. His left eye twitched and the side of Casey's mouth twitched up in response. Written on the sandwich with black marker was a single word, Eiskönig.

Chuck suddenly gasped and came out of the flash. He looked a bit green around the gills. Eiskönig was one of the better kept CIA catastrophe secrets. Casey recalled there had been a lot of graphic photos. "You okay there, Chuck? Did you flash on something?" He feigned concern with a practiced lier's ease.

"Um," Chuck looked at the wrapped sandwich then at Casey. "Yes, yes I did." His eyes narrowed for an instant then his expression smoothed out; Casey was quietly impressed Bartowski had learned that much control. "I wonder why Lou would write something German on my sandwich? Any ideas, Casey?"

Casey shrugged and took another bite of his sandwich. He chewed slowly, swallowed, then washed the bite down with a sip of water, "It's not a nickname?" He couldn't do innocent so he settled for calm.

"Lou isn't German."

"Hn." Casey stared at Chuck who stared back him. Neither of them moved, neither would look away first. "It's not my concern what your ex writes on your sandwiches, Bartowski." He took another bite of his sandwich and gestured at Chuck's lunch without breaking eye contact, "You gonna eat that?"

Still glaring at Casey, Chuck unwrapped his sandwich by touch and took a bite. His face twisted when the weird tastes assaulted his tongue, "What kind of sandwich did you order me, anyways?"

"I told her to surprise me, or I guess you."

Chuck opened the sandwich and stared at four types of pickles, pimento, a processed cheese slice, and peanut butter. He closed the sandwich firmly and took another bite, "Thanks, Casey. It's delicious."

So, Casey thought, they were playing hardball here. He expected a bit of bitching about the sandwich and maybe an apology for the 'sugar bear' prank; but it looked like Chuck was determined to play this out. It would have been nice to know what sparked all this antagonism in the first place.

He watched Chuck grimly eat his entire sandwich and wash it down with a bottle of Mountain Dew. Casey was reminded of the hazing rituals that unofficially happened in the Navy; you grinned and bore any humiliation sent your way and you didn't let it show they'd gotten to you. That was how you won respect.

"So," Casey said. "Walker said no luck this morning?"

"None."

"You want to fill in more detail?"

Chuck waved his hand at one half of the conference table covered with folders, "I didn't flash on anything in that pile," he gestured at the boxes on the other half of the table, "And this afternoon we'll see if I flash on anything in that pile."

"What crawled up your ass and died, Bartowski?" He hadn't meant to say it, just think it, but there it was hanging in the air between them.

"Like you care."

Ah, that old issue. For a guy who was so rooted in modern technology Bartowski sure sounded like a broken record sometimes. "Uh-huh, I thought we'd moved beyond this."

"Exactly, I thought we had, too!" Chuck snagged a file folder out of a box and slammed it down on the table in front of him. With a practiced jerk of his wrist he flipped it open and shuffled through the papers it contained. "For, maybe, a month after I downloaded the new Intersect you were different. You'd talk to me like I was a person, like someone you could trust.” He tossed the folder in the pile of rejected intelligence. Instead of reaching for another file he stared at the empty table in front of him, ”Then, I don't know what happened but you started treating me like an asset again; like I don't know anything and I'm incapable of anything related to spy-stuff.

I’m different, now. I want things to be different.”

Casey sighed and rubbed his face with his hands, “How? You’re still not experienced enough to be on equal footing with Walker and me and this new Intersect is unreliable.”

“So it’s still, ‘Stay in the car, Chuck’?” Chuck sounded bitter and defeated.
“All the times I’ve done well, managed to complete our objectives, tried so hard to not only keep up with you guys but also to keep a lid on my freak outs, and it means nothing?

It’s so frustrating to be back to this level; I hate being left behind.”

Ah, so this was about yesterday. Or, it was the tipping point. “Yesterday was above your pay grade. You aren’t ready for that sort of work yet and even if you were ready we’d still hesitate before taking an analyst on that sort of job.”

“Then why can’t I be a field agent? I can go for training, right?”

“Is that what you want?” Chuck didn’t want that, Casey thought. Chuck wanted to be included but he didn't understand the reality. In his head it was all Bond all the time.

“If it means I can go with you and Sarah on missions, yes.”

"Uh-huh," Casey wasn't going to roll his eyes because Chuck was serious and contrary to what Chuck might think he did respect the kid, but he really didn't understand what he was asking to be a field agent. "Do you know what we did yesterday?"

Chuck blinked, taken aback by the question. "You... chased some bad... people? Got some intel off them? Um, seduced a sexy spy?"

Yeah, he didn't get it. Casey knew Walker wanted to keep Chuck's innocence intact for as long as possible but he'd been pushing for full disclosure since Chuck had downloaded the new Intersect. Looks like he was going to win that argument. "We had a target to put down. " Casey stared hard at Chuck and willed him to keep eye contact. He had to understand what Casey was saying. "Walker got him into position by posing as a call girl and I shot him in the head from an office across the street.

What we do isn't a game, Chuck. I'm an assassin. Walker is a damn good field agent. It isn't all puzzles and intelligence and top secret inventions when you're out in the field. A lot of the time it's blood, pain, and a target's brains splattered against the wall. You go home after missions like that and you pour yourself a stiff drink and thank the maker your positions weren't reversed.
Do you think you could kill someone when it isn't self-defence, just because you were told to?"

Chuck stared at the table in front of him. His breathing was irregular like when he flashed. Casey really hoped he wasn't going to cry. He gave Chuck a couple of minutes of silence to compose himself.

"I get it," Chuck said quietly. "I'm not being excluded, I'm being protected."

"Yes."

"Just like Bryce tried to protect me?"

"Yeah, sure."

"You know, Bryce didn't think I was suited for spy work. I'm too 'nice' and I 'care too much'." Something in Chuck's voice made Casey uneasy. "I don't like that you all seem to idolize my innocence and naiveté; but I play along." Chuck looked up at Casey, his smile was bitter and twisted into more of a smirk than a smile, "Seeing as we're being honest with each other. It seems we don't do that very often."

"I don't..." Casey's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, you 'play along'?"

Chuck shrugged his shoulders and retrieved a file from the box. He flipped it open and studied the first page, "I don't know when it happened, exactly, but one day I realized I wasn't pretending to be Carmichael anymore; I was pretending to be Bartowski."

"How long?"

"A couple of months, now." Chuck tossed the file he was studying on the pile of duds then looked Casey in the eyes, "And before you ask, yes, I did try to tell you guys. I even tried to show you but you kept pushing me back into the Bartowski box so I stopped fighting it."

Casey sat back in his chair and thought about it. Had he seen the change in character? Had he brushed it off as Chuck playing pretend spy again? Little moments he'd brushed aside came back to him and he had to admit he had noticed something. "What about that Sugar Bear crap?"

"Ah," Chuck fiddled with a pen and looked embarrassed. "I admit, it was mean and petty and juvenile. I was frustrated with you guys."

"Why just pick on me? Never mind, I know why."

Chuck's cheeks turned red as his embarrassment increased, "I, uh, didn't exactly... I've been lashing out at her, too."

It was reassuring to see him flounder like the old Bartowski. "Yeah, what kind of shit you been pulling with her?"

He mumbled something that Casey couldn't quite catch and the red in his cheeks intensified.

"I didn't quite catch that, Chuck."

"I've... I've been teasing her. You know, sexually... teasing her."

Casey felt his eyebrows rise towards his hairline, "You? You've been..." If this wasn't evidence of Chuck's growth as an agent and as a man then he didn't know what else could be.

"I know, I'm a horrible person." Chuck hung his head in shame. Casey chuckled and didn't miss the sharp look Chuck shot him. It was good to know Chuck wasn't quite as changed as he thought himself.

"Naw, it just shows you're a real boy, now. And it's payback for all the times she's teased you, right?"

"Well, maybe." Chuck smirked. "I do love her, you know."

"Yeah, yeah. So, what now? Do you seriously want field training?"

Chuck thought about it and to Casey's disgust chewed on the end of his pen while he did it. "I don't know, being underestimated seems to work in my favour. Can you train me off the record? Unofficially?"

That would be dangerous. Unauthorized training of the nature Chuck was asking for would cause a lot of trouble if they were found out. It was doubtful Walker would be on board with it at first but Casey wasn't too keen to keep her in the dark about it. A team operated best when each knew the other's capabilities and they'd need Walker to cover for them. Still, he couldn't honestly say he didn't understand Chuck's paranoia. "I can. But we do it my way and you follow my orders. I'd really be putting myself out on a limb for you, Chuck."

"More so than going rogue for me would?" That smug bastard was grinning. It was a mistake to have ever let him knew he cared that much.

"Shut it, Carmichael. I'm still trying to figure out how we'll tell Walker."

"Oh!" Chuck suddenly dropped the file he'd been picking up. A photo of a small house had slipped out in front of him on the table. Casey waited patiently for the flash to finish. Chuck's eyes opened and there was a gleam there he hadn't recalled ever seeing before. "Got it."

Casey flipped open his cell and hit the speed dial for Sarah, "Chuck flashed. Close up shop and let's go." He hung up.

"Casey, I'm sorry about the sugar bear thing."

"Yeah? I'm sorry about the sandwich." And he found he really did feel sorry for it. It was a pretty shitty thing to do.

"You should be sorry about the sandwich! Sandwiches are my life." Suddenly Casey wasn't as sorry anymore,

"Chuck, you need more than sandwiches in your life."

"And you need more than a stiff drink and a jerk who turns your pet name into a prank."

"Heh, good thing we've got Walker."

"Yeah. When are we going to tell her?"

"After this mission. We'll get a couple drinks in her first."

"I like the sound of that."

~end~