Chuck Fic: "My Name Ain’t Inigo Montoya"
Title: My Name Ain’t Inigo Montoya
Characters: Casey, Ellie, Ilsa Trinchina
Pairing: References to Casey/m and Casey/Ilsa; I’m working towards Casey/Chuck, though Chuck isn’t part of this story. That said, this is gen. Or preslash. Or slash. Pick one. ;)
Wordcount: ~ 3900 words
Disclaimer: Chuck ain’t mine. The movies I reference aren’t mine, either. If you think you recognize a line, it’s probably taken either from “Casino Royale,” “The Big Lebowski” or “The Princess Bride.”
Rating: adult for violence and discussion of torture
Spoilers: Set after 3x10 (Chuck Versus The Tic Tac) as well as “Funkspiel”, which had taken place after 3x08 (Chuck Versus The Fake Name). Spoilers for all these.
Beta: Thank you, millari, for doing a great job in painstaking detail.
Summary: The thing is, you don't stop being a spy.
Author’s Notes: This is the second part of what I hope to become a series. The first part is here: “Funkspiel”. One could also count this Casey drabble.
My Name Ain’t Inigo Montoya
Ellie Bartowski finds him on the patio, sitting propped against the fountain, the only glass he owns in hand, a vodka bottle cooling in the water - no fridge anymore, see. He’s more of a friend of scotch usually, but he can’t access his savings yet, and when the NSA cleaned out his place, it only left him with ten bucks and pocket lint.
Bartowski and Walker are off on a mission. Devon Woodcomb is working a night shift. Dr. Bartowski is just returning from the hospital herself, and Casey wonders how long it’ll take him to lose sight of who’s where without NSA updates and security feeds.
“Ellie,” he greets her, rolling her name on his tongue with drunk glee while toasting at her. “Fancy meeting you here. Want to join me for a drink?”
It stumps her. He can see how her face is working, how it takes her the length of a deliberate pause to come up with a reaction. Then she folds her arms across her chest, crooking one shoulder to hold her purse in place. “Well,” she says, upstanding citizen sarcasm coloring her voice, making her sound like an upgrade of her brother. “I can’t say this is exactly a surprise.”
He blinks. “Huh?”
“Look John, how about we take it inside?” she suggests, not unkindly. “At least that way nobody will see you in this state.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he mutters, taking a sip. Yesterday, he would have put more of an effort into keeping his cover and figuring out what this was about, but that was when he still was John Casey, the NSA agent, not John Casey, the whatever. When John Casey was just a professional name and the Buy More a cover. Now John Casey is apparently him, and retail is all he’s ever achieved. Brave new world.
“John Casey!” Ellie lowers her voice to a worried hiss, although no one is listening in. “What if the neighbors can see?”
He reaches to remove his jacket. Ellie takes a shocked step back.
He frowns up at her.
She takes a deep breath. “You are not,” she says deliberately, “allowed to expose yourself on my patio, drunk or otherwise. I have agreed upon a similar policy with Morgan years ago, and I won’t hesitate to do so with you. Your clothes stay where they are, you hear me, Mister?”
Welcome back to life on the Block.
He decided to be a Marine at seventeen and rushed through college to make it happen as soon as he could. It was all he’d ever wanted. It had been a way to escape from all the things he didn’t ever want to be. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Join us and we’ll make a real man out of you. He’d bought into that crap. All he’d wanted to be was impenetrable. It had helped that he was really good with a sniper rifle, and cherished the thrill of the craft more than he wallowed in guilt.
Oh, fuck it.
There’s a pleasant burn on his tongue as he empties the glass.
In 2002 he’s in Sana’a, Yemen, when three men catch up on him in an alley. His back-up has snuffed it, and all he can do at this junction is run. The job’s done and the bitch is dead alright, but Masaad’s left sidekicks behind, and unlike John, they still have weapons.
“You animal, you killed Toma Masaad,” their leader spits at him in Arabic, while his cronies kick him in the guts, and John hits the sandy concrete with a grunt. “He would have been the savior of al-Yamani! You will pay!”
It’s hot. Yemen isn’t that hot a place really, but it’s the height of summer and sun is burning down on him, melting sand setting his palms on fire, heat rivaling pain. Something is pressing against the place between his shoulder blades, and he doesn’t have to look to know it’s a smuggled MG.
He decides to play deaf - he’s dead anyway, cyanide pill lost on top of it. This is gonna be ugly. He’s naked without back-up, he’s dead.
An iron hand clasps his jaw and yanks him up, yellow teeth grinning at him full of hate.
“You killed leader of enlightenment.” This time it’s in English, enunciation clear and atrocious at once. “You think you are dead. You are wrong. You suffer, not die.”
It’s the first time he understands why some spies call their weapons women names, and ask to be buried with them when they’re terminated.
Kicks rain down on him, and his last thought is relief. They don’t even plan to make him sing, and there won’t be a black mark on his file when it’s closed.
Any thug can kill. A spy needs to take his ego out of the equation - half monk, half hitman, they used to joke in training -, and not be bothered by much of anything, killing or otherwise. The killing is a small part of it - there have been times in human history when pretty much every man was a soldier at war, and most of them could handle the killing. The important part is not to feel compassion, not to be hurt, and to never ever start thinking with your dick.
Casey has thought with his dick on occasions, but then again, he’s always firmly stuck to people who didn’t get his dick too excited in the first place.
He snorts into his drink.
“Alright, I think that’s quite enough,” Ellie says. Right, she’s still standing there, eying him in search of a way to make two hundred unwilling pounds move. He admires her for trying, just a bit. “You’re Chuck’s friend, not mine, but Chuck isn’t here...” Wherever he is tonight, rings in the air unsaid, a hint of desperation about something else entirely. “And Devon doesn’t seem to be willing to tell you. But you’re my neighbor, too, and I can’t let you go on like this.”
Casey ejects a non-committal grunt.
“There is help for people like you, John,” Ellie pleads. “You’re obviously in a bad place, and it’s not my place to ask about it, so I won’t. But, John, this...” She points. “...is not the behavior of a healthy person. You have a drinking problem.”
Two weeks ago while on a mission gone wrong, he was hit with a truth serum. Ever since, he’s been having the most vivid dreams. Casey doesn’t remember a thing about that night - though Bartowski clearly stated in the debriefing that all he ever said and did was gibberish, no biographical leverage at all. But he’s been having dreams - dreams of things long past, things he’d thought he was done with. Two nights ago - just before Keller approached him -, Casey dreamt he was back in Afghanistan, except it wasn’t Clarence Ramsey being butchered by a landmine, it was Chuck.
It wasn’t his father disowning him, either, enunciating clearly that no son of his was bent. It was Keller.
Casey hates dreams, on general principle. He’s perfectly capable of directing his thoughts where they belong, contrary to where they want to stray, as long as he’s awake. It’s just at night when everything goes awry. So he’s an early morning kind of person, eager to go back to his life every day, go back to being John Casey, go back to being a spy, because Keller isn’t his father. And Chuck Bartowski sure as hell isn’t Ramsey. Casey wouldn’t ever let him be.
He takes his time to fish the vodka bottle out of the water, pouring himself a gracious amount. Drinking problem? Him? Nah. Not quite yet. “I’m sure you would know all about my problems,” he says.
“That’s what doctors are for, John.” Ellie quirks her lips. She looks him up and down, and whatever she sees apparently makes her decide something, because her shoulders slump down and her voice grows gentler. “This isn’t any way to go on. Don’t tell me you don’t know that. There are places you can go... self-help groups... I can ask around at the hospital, for AA meetings and help with the, the other problem.”
“There are self-help groups for flashers?” That’s what she thinks, isn’t it? Hysterical laughter is threatening to boil up.
Ellie blushes. “I’m, I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with that particular urge,” she says like it costs her. “You just have to keep it... quiet.”
He nods firmly. “I’m good at that.”
“Right.” She gives him a disbelieving look, switching gears. “You know, this is nothing to be ashamed of. Everybody has problems, John. You really should consider therapy. It’d do wonders for you.”
Hello, my name is John Casey, and I used to be a different man.
Hello, my name is Alex Coburn, and I used to be a spy.
He’s not a spy anymore. He’s a new person, one he doesn’t know yet, and he can do with it whatever he wants. He even could be - Casey smirks at the thought - gay.
Except he knows you never stop being a spy. That’s something Walker is too young to understand. You never stop being a spy, because you’ll always go on watching out for people who could follow you, you’ll always check the perimeter first thing after waking up, and you will never ever talk to a stranger without settling on three different ways you could kill them first.
General Beckman could as well have gone and told him that his skin would be green now. Just because she said it, didn’t make it true.
And to think they’d said the NSA knows all.
“You could talk to me,” Ellie presses, empathy shining in her eyes, when he doesn’t come forward with a reply. That one costs her, too.
For a moment there, he actually wants to answer - give her a real, true answer, not just a deflection - but as hard as he thinks on it, he can’t come up with anything. The concept is entirely too foreign, the vodka too high proof. This isn’t the fight anymore, this is civvie life, there are rules now and they say he can talk.
Christ, he misses the Cold War.
Ellie sighs, and before he can react, she’s gathered her purse in her lap and sat down next to him, a whole foot away, offering companionship without intruding.
He closes his eyes, listening for Black Ops and assassins sneaking up on them, no matter how unlikely he knows that is to happen now.
It’s still 2002 in Sana’a, because no more than three days can have passed since they caught him on the street, no matter it feels like it might as well be years later. He’s lost all sense of time. He’s somewhere underground - he isn’t sure where - and he’s running again, stumbling, soles of his feet making wet splashing sounds on cold stone.
There are dogs barking in the distance. He almost snuffed it when he killed the last guard, hands too slick with blood to twist a neck.
Every fiber within him is screaming and wailing for a gun.
John is running - stumbling - blindly, white cold panic covering his vision. He needs to get out of here - kill whatever gets in his way - get out, out, out, and all he sees is a hot poker glowing in the shadows, all he feels are hands - too strong for him after three days of enduring agony - forcing his knees apart, exposing his balls.
Every step he takes, he’s afraid his legs will give in.
The building lights up behind him just when he’s started feeling cool night air on his skin, just when he’s stumbling into a forest. He twists around, all fluid motion born of fear, and then he stares, motionless, the explosion wrecking through the lair in a display of glorious, controlled annihilation.
They say there is one event in every spy’s career that either kills them or truly makes them spies forever - not because of the secrets they learn, or the wisdom they gather, but because the alternatives stop fitting, like body armor that’s useless because it’s too big.
It takes him two years to stop waking up covered in sweat, and he’ll always be able to blindly point at any weapon in the room, his own and otherwise, until he dies.
When John - no, Alex - was seventeen, there used to be a Marine ad on the big front across the town theater. Nobody in his family had anything to do with the military, Navy or otherwise, but Alex would still pause every time he moved past it, taking in the cheesy line and the picture of the guy on it, BDUs and sweat and all. Before boot camp - before the guns - the Navy mostly was a way out.
Now he’s a little bit older and dead on paper, and reborn into a cover life. Of all things, he never thought he’d end up a throwaway.
Casey wonders how often he can dare contact Beckman before she’ll snap and send an assassin his way to shut him up, extreme prejudice style.
Ellie, contrary to her brother, knows the art of staying silent.
He doesn’t even mind when she clears her voice.
“I’m not stupid, John,” she says. “I can see that you aren’t in a place you want to stay.
“You’re like Chuck,” she adds after a beat.
It’s the first time he turns to look at her, a frown of disbelief on his face.
She chuckles. “I mean,” she clarifies. “You obviously don’t belong at the Buy More. You went to college, didn’t you? I know you’ve traveled a lot. The things you’ve mentioned... the things you’ve seen... You need to move forward again, or you’ll always be stuck in this life.”
Casey supplies her with an affirmative grunt. Damn right, she is.
“I understand that you aren’t happy,” she says, quietly. “I wouldn’t be, either.” And she doesn’t even know yet that all his furniture has been ‘reposessed.’
This is his life now. He’s a civilian. He works in retail. He’s only got two guns - fine German craft in excellent condition, but still just standard issue -, and he’s got some savings that he’ll go on claiming are inherited. He still can’t tell anybody anything about himself, and he still wakes up at night from dreams of hot pokers and landmines exploding, sometimes pissed as hell and sometimes resigned and sometimes hard just from remembering Clarence’s hands on him.
“What did you want to be when you were a child?” Ellie asks.
He looks at his hands - steady, a hitman’s hands are as steady as a doctor’s.
“A soldier,” he answers, thinking of that ad.
Ellie isn’t dumb. “What made you quit?”
“Duty rotation was over.”
It’s half truth, half lie, nicely cooked.
In the corner of his eye, he can see her crook her head, contemplating the night.
“What was your major in college?”
Casey breathes in, breathes out. The world is very quiet. He’s feeling old.
“International relations,” he says, plain truth on his tongue salty like tears. The first thing you need for the tradecraft is languages, of which you learn many. Then politics, which you need to understand to be able to properly execute orders. Only after that the talent spotters start looking at your physical skills, your ability to be deadly and ruthless. If you make it, you excel at all of the above, and have had a shitload of luck.
“They say you’ve seen a lot of shit down in Yemen,” a young voice remarks behind him, careless and happy, and John doesn’t need to look up to be able to trace the space taken up by Clarence Ramsey’s slender body in the flickering campfire lights. “You know I’m gonna ask you about it one day.”
It’s 2002, close to Qalat, Afghanistan, and he’s joined up with his team to deliver the take from the Ba’ath mission, though all of them know he’s just waiting for his call back home. Stuff like what happened in Sana’a, they exfiltrate you ASAP to see shrinks, to properly debrief. The NSA takes care of their people. John closes his eyes for a moment, breathing in humid air deep. He’s yearning for some rest so hard it hurts. His hands are loading and unloading the gun in his hand mechanically, again and again.
“Stay in Afghanistan long enough,” he answers, gruff, “you’ll see a lot of shit yourself.”
He can see Ramsey’s smirk in the corner of his eyes. It’s a new one, this one, Special Ops sent him, dark face softer and more relaxed than a sniper should have a right to be. He’s all John is not; his whole face seems to be hurting these days from a tension that won’t go away, when Ramsey’s face only ever hurts from laughter.
He doesn’t look up when the other man sits down next to him, and John is too aware of the space between them, of how he craves to feel that smooth skin and the lithe limbs under his hands.
Rest of the team is sitting around one of the other fires, laughter and faint whiffs of cigars waving towards him, now and then.
Ramsey pauses deliberately before moving closer, shuffling like a boy but with the grace of a cat. Close enough to feel his body heat, John closes his eyes again, looking away. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I love you,” Ramsey says simply.
“You’ve known me for two weeks, kiddo.”
“Not that much of a kid, I’m not.”
John groans, tired of the phantom pain still throbbing in his guts, tired of the way he feels and the pull, the one that won’t go away, that he should be able to fight off, the one that makes him turn around, propped on one hand. And Ramsey - Clarence - is already answering his kiss, soft and smooth and eager all at once.
He makes sure not to drop his gun.
Ramsey steps on the landmine just four days later.
A cricket is chirping not so far away. No cars have driven by in what seems like forever, no helicopter has heralded Bartowski and Walker’s return. It’s a pleasant night. There are worse places than Burbank to settle down. It was a good choice to make for the Woodcomb-Bartowskis, as well as it was for Kathleen.
The silence is stretching, and Casey knows he better say something in return.
“I used to be married,” he says. “Woman called Kathleen. I met her again today.”
“Oh?” Ellie sounds like she’s been getting sleepy, but now she’s waking up again with a start.
Casey studies his hands, arms propped on his knees. Six of his fingers have been broken at some point, one of them twice; one is actually a prosthetic. “She has a daughter,” he continues. “She’s eighteen. We have a daughter,” he corrects himself after a moment, smirking. “I didn’t know.”
“Oh, John, that is...” Ellie picks herself up, searching for words for a second. That is - awful? Wonderful? Casey hasn’t decided himself. More likely the former, though. “That’s a horrible thing not to be told. I’m so sorry.”
“Nah.” He waves it away. Obviously, not Kathleen’s fault. “It’s better like this. I’m not the kind of father she needs. She still doesn’t know. It’s best.” He’d just get her killed. He’s only entered her life once, and already he’s almost gotten both of them killed.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” Ellie admits. That’s fair - he knows the woman’s got strong feelings on the topic of fatherly absence. “I’ll keep telling you if you just get help, it’ll all be under control soon...”
“Yeah well, I’d still be a flasher,” he interrupts her.
There’s a shocked pause.
Then, Ellie giggles. He snorts a laugh himself.
He could like Ellie Bartowski, he thinks. He really could.
Her tiny hand is on his thigh suddenly, patting it in a sisterly way. “So what are you going to do?” There’s real affection in her voice. And she isn’t talking of Kathleen anymore, he knows. Nor of Alex, his daughter. She still thinks he’s a drunk, and whatever else Chuck has told her about him.
But mostly she just thinks he’s lost, and if Casey is honest with himself, she isn’t that off the mark about that.
The NSA won’t be calling him home anymore. It’s impossible to wrap his mind around that.
“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “Don't have the slightest clue.”
It’s 2004 in Rome, warm summer sun illuminating the proud ancient mansions under surveillance across the plaza, and John’s eyes skim one of his back-up agents, Martinez, who covertly nods, before he firmly places his sunglasses on his nose where they belong. It’s Sunday, flower market day, and while he strolls from one stall to the next, roses and lilies and lilacs invade his nose with sweet insistence.
A woman almost bumps into him, and it’s years of training routine that make him twist away just in time. She stumbles out of the way, anyway, quick to react herself; he catches her.
“Impressive,” she says in Italian, heavy accent and attentive eyes searching him, up and down. “Those are quite some reflexes.”
John looks at her for just a beat; he likes what he sees. “I try to work out after work.” It’s the kind of thing to say that fits his cover.
She smiles. “And what kind of work is that?”
“Energy consultant.” There’s still Martinez far off on his left and a whole bunch of supposed bad guys all over the plaza, but most of his attention is on her.
He takes off his sunglasses, offering her the easy, meaningless smile of his cover.
John has had his life under control again for quite some time. He rarely ever wakes up from nightmares these days, and the psych evals have all been concluded long since. He rarely ever thinks of the poker, the explosions, the terror, at all. He never thinks of Clarence Ramsey - he’s a big Jenna Jameson fan now, determined and focused on her every night. He’s back.
“John Casey,” he says, offering his hand.
“Ilsa Trinchina,” she answers, her smile deepening her dimples. She’s still looking him over and not hiding it in the least. She seems to like what she sees, as well.
He’s escorting her to a café five minutes later. He carries two guns today, one tugged away under his shirt, snugly pressed against his back.
Characters: Casey, Ellie, Ilsa Trinchina
Pairing: References to Casey/m and Casey/Ilsa; I’m working towards Casey/Chuck, though Chuck isn’t part of this story. That said, this is gen. Or preslash. Or slash. Pick one. ;)
Wordcount: ~ 3900 words
Disclaimer: Chuck ain’t mine. The movies I reference aren’t mine, either. If you think you recognize a line, it’s probably taken either from “Casino Royale,” “The Big Lebowski” or “The Princess Bride.”
Rating: adult for violence and discussion of torture
Spoilers: Set after 3x10 (Chuck Versus The Tic Tac) as well as “Funkspiel”, which had taken place after 3x08 (Chuck Versus The Fake Name). Spoilers for all these.
Beta: Thank you, millari, for doing a great job in painstaking detail.
Summary: The thing is, you don't stop being a spy.
Author’s Notes: This is the second part of what I hope to become a series. The first part is here: “Funkspiel”. One could also count this Casey drabble.
My Name Ain’t Inigo Montoya
Ellie Bartowski finds him on the patio, sitting propped against the fountain, the only glass he owns in hand, a vodka bottle cooling in the water - no fridge anymore, see. He’s more of a friend of scotch usually, but he can’t access his savings yet, and when the NSA cleaned out his place, it only left him with ten bucks and pocket lint.
Bartowski and Walker are off on a mission. Devon Woodcomb is working a night shift. Dr. Bartowski is just returning from the hospital herself, and Casey wonders how long it’ll take him to lose sight of who’s where without NSA updates and security feeds.
“Ellie,” he greets her, rolling her name on his tongue with drunk glee while toasting at her. “Fancy meeting you here. Want to join me for a drink?”
It stumps her. He can see how her face is working, how it takes her the length of a deliberate pause to come up with a reaction. Then she folds her arms across her chest, crooking one shoulder to hold her purse in place. “Well,” she says, upstanding citizen sarcasm coloring her voice, making her sound like an upgrade of her brother. “I can’t say this is exactly a surprise.”
He blinks. “Huh?”
“Look John, how about we take it inside?” she suggests, not unkindly. “At least that way nobody will see you in this state.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he mutters, taking a sip. Yesterday, he would have put more of an effort into keeping his cover and figuring out what this was about, but that was when he still was John Casey, the NSA agent, not John Casey, the whatever. When John Casey was just a professional name and the Buy More a cover. Now John Casey is apparently him, and retail is all he’s ever achieved. Brave new world.
“John Casey!” Ellie lowers her voice to a worried hiss, although no one is listening in. “What if the neighbors can see?”
He reaches to remove his jacket. Ellie takes a shocked step back.
He frowns up at her.
She takes a deep breath. “You are not,” she says deliberately, “allowed to expose yourself on my patio, drunk or otherwise. I have agreed upon a similar policy with Morgan years ago, and I won’t hesitate to do so with you. Your clothes stay where they are, you hear me, Mister?”
Welcome back to life on the Block.
He decided to be a Marine at seventeen and rushed through college to make it happen as soon as he could. It was all he’d ever wanted. It had been a way to escape from all the things he didn’t ever want to be. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Join us and we’ll make a real man out of you. He’d bought into that crap. All he’d wanted to be was impenetrable. It had helped that he was really good with a sniper rifle, and cherished the thrill of the craft more than he wallowed in guilt.
Oh, fuck it.
There’s a pleasant burn on his tongue as he empties the glass.
In 2002 he’s in Sana’a, Yemen, when three men catch up on him in an alley. His back-up has snuffed it, and all he can do at this junction is run. The job’s done and the bitch is dead alright, but Masaad’s left sidekicks behind, and unlike John, they still have weapons.
“You animal, you killed Toma Masaad,” their leader spits at him in Arabic, while his cronies kick him in the guts, and John hits the sandy concrete with a grunt. “He would have been the savior of al-Yamani! You will pay!”
It’s hot. Yemen isn’t that hot a place really, but it’s the height of summer and sun is burning down on him, melting sand setting his palms on fire, heat rivaling pain. Something is pressing against the place between his shoulder blades, and he doesn’t have to look to know it’s a smuggled MG.
He decides to play deaf - he’s dead anyway, cyanide pill lost on top of it. This is gonna be ugly. He’s naked without back-up, he’s dead.
An iron hand clasps his jaw and yanks him up, yellow teeth grinning at him full of hate.
“You killed leader of enlightenment.” This time it’s in English, enunciation clear and atrocious at once. “You think you are dead. You are wrong. You suffer, not die.”
It’s the first time he understands why some spies call their weapons women names, and ask to be buried with them when they’re terminated.
Kicks rain down on him, and his last thought is relief. They don’t even plan to make him sing, and there won’t be a black mark on his file when it’s closed.
Any thug can kill. A spy needs to take his ego out of the equation - half monk, half hitman, they used to joke in training -, and not be bothered by much of anything, killing or otherwise. The killing is a small part of it - there have been times in human history when pretty much every man was a soldier at war, and most of them could handle the killing. The important part is not to feel compassion, not to be hurt, and to never ever start thinking with your dick.
Casey has thought with his dick on occasions, but then again, he’s always firmly stuck to people who didn’t get his dick too excited in the first place.
He snorts into his drink.
“Alright, I think that’s quite enough,” Ellie says. Right, she’s still standing there, eying him in search of a way to make two hundred unwilling pounds move. He admires her for trying, just a bit. “You’re Chuck’s friend, not mine, but Chuck isn’t here...” Wherever he is tonight, rings in the air unsaid, a hint of desperation about something else entirely. “And Devon doesn’t seem to be willing to tell you. But you’re my neighbor, too, and I can’t let you go on like this.”
Casey ejects a non-committal grunt.
“There is help for people like you, John,” Ellie pleads. “You’re obviously in a bad place, and it’s not my place to ask about it, so I won’t. But, John, this...” She points. “...is not the behavior of a healthy person. You have a drinking problem.”
Two weeks ago while on a mission gone wrong, he was hit with a truth serum. Ever since, he’s been having the most vivid dreams. Casey doesn’t remember a thing about that night - though Bartowski clearly stated in the debriefing that all he ever said and did was gibberish, no biographical leverage at all. But he’s been having dreams - dreams of things long past, things he’d thought he was done with. Two nights ago - just before Keller approached him -, Casey dreamt he was back in Afghanistan, except it wasn’t Clarence Ramsey being butchered by a landmine, it was Chuck.
It wasn’t his father disowning him, either, enunciating clearly that no son of his was bent. It was Keller.
Casey hates dreams, on general principle. He’s perfectly capable of directing his thoughts where they belong, contrary to where they want to stray, as long as he’s awake. It’s just at night when everything goes awry. So he’s an early morning kind of person, eager to go back to his life every day, go back to being John Casey, go back to being a spy, because Keller isn’t his father. And Chuck Bartowski sure as hell isn’t Ramsey. Casey wouldn’t ever let him be.
He takes his time to fish the vodka bottle out of the water, pouring himself a gracious amount. Drinking problem? Him? Nah. Not quite yet. “I’m sure you would know all about my problems,” he says.
“That’s what doctors are for, John.” Ellie quirks her lips. She looks him up and down, and whatever she sees apparently makes her decide something, because her shoulders slump down and her voice grows gentler. “This isn’t any way to go on. Don’t tell me you don’t know that. There are places you can go... self-help groups... I can ask around at the hospital, for AA meetings and help with the, the other problem.”
“There are self-help groups for flashers?” That’s what she thinks, isn’t it? Hysterical laughter is threatening to boil up.
Ellie blushes. “I’m, I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with that particular urge,” she says like it costs her. “You just have to keep it... quiet.”
He nods firmly. “I’m good at that.”
“Right.” She gives him a disbelieving look, switching gears. “You know, this is nothing to be ashamed of. Everybody has problems, John. You really should consider therapy. It’d do wonders for you.”
Hello, my name is John Casey, and I used to be a different man.
Hello, my name is Alex Coburn, and I used to be a spy.
He’s not a spy anymore. He’s a new person, one he doesn’t know yet, and he can do with it whatever he wants. He even could be - Casey smirks at the thought - gay.
Except he knows you never stop being a spy. That’s something Walker is too young to understand. You never stop being a spy, because you’ll always go on watching out for people who could follow you, you’ll always check the perimeter first thing after waking up, and you will never ever talk to a stranger without settling on three different ways you could kill them first.
General Beckman could as well have gone and told him that his skin would be green now. Just because she said it, didn’t make it true.
And to think they’d said the NSA knows all.
“You could talk to me,” Ellie presses, empathy shining in her eyes, when he doesn’t come forward with a reply. That one costs her, too.
For a moment there, he actually wants to answer - give her a real, true answer, not just a deflection - but as hard as he thinks on it, he can’t come up with anything. The concept is entirely too foreign, the vodka too high proof. This isn’t the fight anymore, this is civvie life, there are rules now and they say he can talk.
Christ, he misses the Cold War.
Ellie sighs, and before he can react, she’s gathered her purse in her lap and sat down next to him, a whole foot away, offering companionship without intruding.
He closes his eyes, listening for Black Ops and assassins sneaking up on them, no matter how unlikely he knows that is to happen now.
It’s still 2002 in Sana’a, because no more than three days can have passed since they caught him on the street, no matter it feels like it might as well be years later. He’s lost all sense of time. He’s somewhere underground - he isn’t sure where - and he’s running again, stumbling, soles of his feet making wet splashing sounds on cold stone.
There are dogs barking in the distance. He almost snuffed it when he killed the last guard, hands too slick with blood to twist a neck.
Every fiber within him is screaming and wailing for a gun.
John is running - stumbling - blindly, white cold panic covering his vision. He needs to get out of here - kill whatever gets in his way - get out, out, out, and all he sees is a hot poker glowing in the shadows, all he feels are hands - too strong for him after three days of enduring agony - forcing his knees apart, exposing his balls.
Every step he takes, he’s afraid his legs will give in.
The building lights up behind him just when he’s started feeling cool night air on his skin, just when he’s stumbling into a forest. He twists around, all fluid motion born of fear, and then he stares, motionless, the explosion wrecking through the lair in a display of glorious, controlled annihilation.
They say there is one event in every spy’s career that either kills them or truly makes them spies forever - not because of the secrets they learn, or the wisdom they gather, but because the alternatives stop fitting, like body armor that’s useless because it’s too big.
It takes him two years to stop waking up covered in sweat, and he’ll always be able to blindly point at any weapon in the room, his own and otherwise, until he dies.
When John - no, Alex - was seventeen, there used to be a Marine ad on the big front across the town theater. Nobody in his family had anything to do with the military, Navy or otherwise, but Alex would still pause every time he moved past it, taking in the cheesy line and the picture of the guy on it, BDUs and sweat and all. Before boot camp - before the guns - the Navy mostly was a way out.
Now he’s a little bit older and dead on paper, and reborn into a cover life. Of all things, he never thought he’d end up a throwaway.
Casey wonders how often he can dare contact Beckman before she’ll snap and send an assassin his way to shut him up, extreme prejudice style.
Ellie, contrary to her brother, knows the art of staying silent.
He doesn’t even mind when she clears her voice.
“I’m not stupid, John,” she says. “I can see that you aren’t in a place you want to stay.
“You’re like Chuck,” she adds after a beat.
It’s the first time he turns to look at her, a frown of disbelief on his face.
She chuckles. “I mean,” she clarifies. “You obviously don’t belong at the Buy More. You went to college, didn’t you? I know you’ve traveled a lot. The things you’ve mentioned... the things you’ve seen... You need to move forward again, or you’ll always be stuck in this life.”
Casey supplies her with an affirmative grunt. Damn right, she is.
“I understand that you aren’t happy,” she says, quietly. “I wouldn’t be, either.” And she doesn’t even know yet that all his furniture has been ‘reposessed.’
This is his life now. He’s a civilian. He works in retail. He’s only got two guns - fine German craft in excellent condition, but still just standard issue -, and he’s got some savings that he’ll go on claiming are inherited. He still can’t tell anybody anything about himself, and he still wakes up at night from dreams of hot pokers and landmines exploding, sometimes pissed as hell and sometimes resigned and sometimes hard just from remembering Clarence’s hands on him.
“What did you want to be when you were a child?” Ellie asks.
He looks at his hands - steady, a hitman’s hands are as steady as a doctor’s.
“A soldier,” he answers, thinking of that ad.
Ellie isn’t dumb. “What made you quit?”
“Duty rotation was over.”
It’s half truth, half lie, nicely cooked.
In the corner of his eye, he can see her crook her head, contemplating the night.
“What was your major in college?”
Casey breathes in, breathes out. The world is very quiet. He’s feeling old.
“International relations,” he says, plain truth on his tongue salty like tears. The first thing you need for the tradecraft is languages, of which you learn many. Then politics, which you need to understand to be able to properly execute orders. Only after that the talent spotters start looking at your physical skills, your ability to be deadly and ruthless. If you make it, you excel at all of the above, and have had a shitload of luck.
“They say you’ve seen a lot of shit down in Yemen,” a young voice remarks behind him, careless and happy, and John doesn’t need to look up to be able to trace the space taken up by Clarence Ramsey’s slender body in the flickering campfire lights. “You know I’m gonna ask you about it one day.”
It’s 2002, close to Qalat, Afghanistan, and he’s joined up with his team to deliver the take from the Ba’ath mission, though all of them know he’s just waiting for his call back home. Stuff like what happened in Sana’a, they exfiltrate you ASAP to see shrinks, to properly debrief. The NSA takes care of their people. John closes his eyes for a moment, breathing in humid air deep. He’s yearning for some rest so hard it hurts. His hands are loading and unloading the gun in his hand mechanically, again and again.
“Stay in Afghanistan long enough,” he answers, gruff, “you’ll see a lot of shit yourself.”
He can see Ramsey’s smirk in the corner of his eyes. It’s a new one, this one, Special Ops sent him, dark face softer and more relaxed than a sniper should have a right to be. He’s all John is not; his whole face seems to be hurting these days from a tension that won’t go away, when Ramsey’s face only ever hurts from laughter.
He doesn’t look up when the other man sits down next to him, and John is too aware of the space between them, of how he craves to feel that smooth skin and the lithe limbs under his hands.
Rest of the team is sitting around one of the other fires, laughter and faint whiffs of cigars waving towards him, now and then.
Ramsey pauses deliberately before moving closer, shuffling like a boy but with the grace of a cat. Close enough to feel his body heat, John closes his eyes again, looking away. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I love you,” Ramsey says simply.
“You’ve known me for two weeks, kiddo.”
“Not that much of a kid, I’m not.”
John groans, tired of the phantom pain still throbbing in his guts, tired of the way he feels and the pull, the one that won’t go away, that he should be able to fight off, the one that makes him turn around, propped on one hand. And Ramsey - Clarence - is already answering his kiss, soft and smooth and eager all at once.
He makes sure not to drop his gun.
Ramsey steps on the landmine just four days later.
A cricket is chirping not so far away. No cars have driven by in what seems like forever, no helicopter has heralded Bartowski and Walker’s return. It’s a pleasant night. There are worse places than Burbank to settle down. It was a good choice to make for the Woodcomb-Bartowskis, as well as it was for Kathleen.
The silence is stretching, and Casey knows he better say something in return.
“I used to be married,” he says. “Woman called Kathleen. I met her again today.”
“Oh?” Ellie sounds like she’s been getting sleepy, but now she’s waking up again with a start.
Casey studies his hands, arms propped on his knees. Six of his fingers have been broken at some point, one of them twice; one is actually a prosthetic. “She has a daughter,” he continues. “She’s eighteen. We have a daughter,” he corrects himself after a moment, smirking. “I didn’t know.”
“Oh, John, that is...” Ellie picks herself up, searching for words for a second. That is - awful? Wonderful? Casey hasn’t decided himself. More likely the former, though. “That’s a horrible thing not to be told. I’m so sorry.”
“Nah.” He waves it away. Obviously, not Kathleen’s fault. “It’s better like this. I’m not the kind of father she needs. She still doesn’t know. It’s best.” He’d just get her killed. He’s only entered her life once, and already he’s almost gotten both of them killed.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” Ellie admits. That’s fair - he knows the woman’s got strong feelings on the topic of fatherly absence. “I’ll keep telling you if you just get help, it’ll all be under control soon...”
“Yeah well, I’d still be a flasher,” he interrupts her.
There’s a shocked pause.
Then, Ellie giggles. He snorts a laugh himself.
He could like Ellie Bartowski, he thinks. He really could.
Her tiny hand is on his thigh suddenly, patting it in a sisterly way. “So what are you going to do?” There’s real affection in her voice. And she isn’t talking of Kathleen anymore, he knows. Nor of Alex, his daughter. She still thinks he’s a drunk, and whatever else Chuck has told her about him.
But mostly she just thinks he’s lost, and if Casey is honest with himself, she isn’t that off the mark about that.
The NSA won’t be calling him home anymore. It’s impossible to wrap his mind around that.
“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “Don't have the slightest clue.”
It’s 2004 in Rome, warm summer sun illuminating the proud ancient mansions under surveillance across the plaza, and John’s eyes skim one of his back-up agents, Martinez, who covertly nods, before he firmly places his sunglasses on his nose where they belong. It’s Sunday, flower market day, and while he strolls from one stall to the next, roses and lilies and lilacs invade his nose with sweet insistence.
A woman almost bumps into him, and it’s years of training routine that make him twist away just in time. She stumbles out of the way, anyway, quick to react herself; he catches her.
“Impressive,” she says in Italian, heavy accent and attentive eyes searching him, up and down. “Those are quite some reflexes.”
John looks at her for just a beat; he likes what he sees. “I try to work out after work.” It’s the kind of thing to say that fits his cover.
She smiles. “And what kind of work is that?”
“Energy consultant.” There’s still Martinez far off on his left and a whole bunch of supposed bad guys all over the plaza, but most of his attention is on her.
He takes off his sunglasses, offering her the easy, meaningless smile of his cover.
John has had his life under control again for quite some time. He rarely ever wakes up from nightmares these days, and the psych evals have all been concluded long since. He rarely ever thinks of the poker, the explosions, the terror, at all. He never thinks of Clarence Ramsey - he’s a big Jenna Jameson fan now, determined and focused on her every night. He’s back.
“John Casey,” he says, offering his hand.
“Ilsa Trinchina,” she answers, her smile deepening her dimples. She’s still looking him over and not hiding it in the least. She seems to like what she sees, as well.
He’s escorting her to a café five minutes later. He carries two guns today, one tugged away under his shirt, snugly pressed against his back.