This Is How It Happens

[musicalluna]

Title: This Is How It Happens
Fandom: Chuck
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Chuck, Sarah, Casey
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Drama
Warnings: None
Complete: Maybe?
Summary: There are always guns being pointed at him, but Chuck always manages to evade being shot. At least until now.
A/N: I've been watching Chuck and THERE ARE ALWAYS GUNS POINTED AT CHUCK, BUT HE NEVER GETS INJURED. I was just thinking that when it finally happened, it would be a shock.
Disclaimer: I don't own anybody.
 

Chuck is scared; Chuck is always scared.

 

People are pointing guns at him, again, so that only seems reasonable. You'd think as often as it happens he'd have grown some kind of immunity to the sight of them, some kind of fear-resistance, like being injected with flu vaccine, but that's really not how it works. The sight of a gun barrel never fails to catapult his heart into his throat, to cause sweat to break out across his palms and brow.

 

And as usual, his mouth is running at a thousand miles an hour, tripping over his lips, teeth, and tongue. “Okay, okay, I realize how this looks, now, but it's really not what you think and if we could just sit down and talk like civilized people, I'm sure we can come to an agreement which doesn't involve anyone getting shot or strangled or knifed or anything else violent.”

 

“Chuck, shut. Up,” Casey growls, glaring simultaneously at the three men pointing guns at Chuck's raised hands. How does he do that?

 

“That's enough,” Geizlieb says, looking from Sarah to Casey and then to Chuck. “We're done here.”

 

“You bet your ass we are,” Casey snarls back. “Put your weapon do—” Casey grunts and there's a sound like something heavy hitting the gravel rooftop, but Chuck is looking into Geizlieb's eyes, fear becoming terror as he realizes that Geizlieb is pulling the trigger.

 

Sarah yells, a thread of real panic worked into her voice and then there's an explosion of sound, followed by a split-second of absolute silence and pain, pain that shocks the breath out of him, knocks him onto his back.

 

Chuck gasps and it feels wet, thready with agony, and he blinks up at the misty dark blue of the Los Angeles night sky, reaches up with shaking hands to pat his chest, to find it un-punctured as he always has in the past.

 

But this time there's blood on his hands when he pulls them back.

 

He coughs, tastes coppery metal, feels slickness on his lips. It hurts, oh it, it hurts.

 

“Chuck!” Sarah screams and her voice is raw. More gunshots, so rapid they blur into one never-ending assault and then quiet again, just the ringing in Chuck's ears, the sound of his own ragged breaths. He's never felt anything like this, nothing that even comes close. Every breath hurts and every movement and Geizlieb just shot him and oh, god, he's dying and no, no no no, he can't die he can't not here, not up here like this, not when it hurts so much.

 

Sarah yells his name again from much closer, gravel scattering as she scrambles toward him on her hands and knees. Chuck whimpers, moves his hand toward her, desperate to hold onto something. She grabs his hand and then she's leaning over him, her hair a wreck and tears hovering in her eyes. “Stay with me, Chuck,” she says, “Stay with me, everything's going to be okay.”

 

He's making noises that he can't stop and it takes him a second to realize that he's crying, that his eyes are burning and drops of liquid are sliding into the curves of his ears. “It hurts,” he breathes and clutches her hand, writhing as he tries to get away, to distance himself from the overwhelming, searing pain. “It hurts it hurts it hurts make it stop, oh, please, Sarah, please, make it stop.”

 

Sarah covers her mouth and turns her head away and Chuck looks left too late. Casey's hands come down on his chest and he arches up off of the ground, until there's nothing but the agony and the sound of his own screaming.