The Great Nerf War

A/N: Was supposed to be a quick one shot or OTP. Welp…that didn’t happen. I was GOING to wait until the whole thing was done, but, I also am the guy who sometimes gives a Christmas present as soon as I buy it. So here you go, more fluff. From me. Hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Chuck

He looked around the new apartment and surveyed how much he had accomplished.

Living room furniture arranged the way Ellie thought it should be. Check

Bookshelf arranged the way he thought it should be. Check.

Keys by the door. Check.

Gripping anxiety of moving out of his sister's apartment, moving across town, and having his own place. Check. Check. And check.

He smiled. Since the… “incident” at Stanford it had been a long road, but Chuck had gone back to school, graduated, and now was working for a computer security startup.

He smiled. Things felt right. He glanced around the apartment and his face fell.

He saw them.

The house warming gift Awesome had brought. The one Ellie had clearly not been in favor of.

Two Nerf guns, both loaded with ammo, and an entire box of back-up ammo.

He shook his head. It was Awesome, trying to be…well…Awesome

Bro, I know the last time you used this it worked.

The words rang through Chuck's head and Awesome was right.

He had met his best friend in college using the Nerf guns at Stanford.

He had met Bryce.

The fraternity had actually encouraged The Great Nerf War and had provided the guns.

Their belief, if you have trouble making friends with your neighbors, then give a Nerf gun to your neighbor as a greeting gift.

The rules, if the neighbor fires on you, then the war is on. There was no pause unless both parties agreed on it.

His next door neighbor at the frat…Bryce.

The two became inseparable.

Until they weren’t, which was when Chuck was suspended.

Chuck looked at the guns, shook his head, and left the living room.

}o{

He came back into the living room a little while later, freshly showered. He was wearing his lounge pants and a tee shirt. He sat down on the couch and had to admit the site lines were perfect for the TV.

He went to turn on the TV when he heard the keys go into the apartment door across the hall. Chuck froze and slowly turned his head. His eyes landed on the Nerf guns. He turned back to the TV. The one that wasn't on. He kept staring at it, wanting his finger to push the power button on the remote. It never came on.

He stood, walked over to the door and stopped. He stared at the guns. He looked at both and picked up the one he thought was better.

He opened the door, took a deep breath, and walked out of his apartment.

}o{

Sarah was staring at her refrigerator. It was empty. It was always empty. She had lived for years out of cans or MREs. She shut the refrigerator door, opened the cupboard and looked at the cans.

It was an old habit. One she should get rid of. But it was familiar and easy.

At least she didn't dive into goodwill overnight clothing bins any more to find new clothes. That was one her father had taught her.

She was out of the CIA. She was out of conning. After the mess with Bryce….

She had a real job now…a real career. She was a translator, and a good one. No. A great one. It paid well. She had medical insurance, a 401k, and most importantly she wasn't being shot at.

She would say no one was trying to stab her but there were interoffice politics. It was nothing she couldn't handle. In fact, it amused her.

She reached for a can of pasta in sauce. She thought she should at least warm it up before she ate it, or at least put it in a bowl instead of eating it straight out of a can, when she heard it.

There was a staccato knock on the door. She literally moved her body away from the cupboard door to look at the front door, as if doing so would allow her to see who was outside.

She rolled her eyes at herself, shut the cupboard door, and walked across the living room ready to be amused at whoever was going to try and sell her whatever.

She looked out the peephole in the door and pulled her head back, amused. She didn't know door to door salesmen could be so tall.

She also had never seen one with a plastic gun before. She reached over to the drawer of the table by the door and pulled her own gun.

She didn't think he'd have one of those 3D printed ones she'd heard about, but if he did and was stupid enough to let her see it was going to be the last stupid thing he did.

She gripped the gun when she saw him look down, back up, and then almost cartoon like, he glanced down again, horror on his face.

“Oh God!” He exclaimed, looking up at the key hole and thrusting the gun out in front of him in both of his hands. “It's a Nerf gun! I come in peace!”

Sarah Walker had seen a LOT of things in her life. She wasn't sure when something had amused her more.

She opened the door, with one hand, and slid the gun she had back into the drawer, and slid it shut, deftly, with the other.

“Hi!” The tall man who was obviously freaking out said. “I'm Chuck Bartowski, your next door neighbor.”

“Hi,” Sarah replied.

He thrust the gun at her. “It’s loaded. It’s something I did in college.”

She glanced down at the gun and then back at him.

“Please, take it,” he said. She reached out and took the Nerf gun in her hand, never taking her eyes off of his. “So, it’s your call. When we moved in, to get to know our neighbors better, or just break the ice, we had ‘The Great Nerf War.’”

She didn’t say anything, and she never let it show, but inside, she tensed.

“If you decide to participate, you take a shot at me whenever you see me,” Chuck explained. “Once it begins, though, the war cannot end until both sides agree to a truce.”

“I see,” she answered, her eyes still locked with his. She was studying him. She was somewhat confused and surprised. This…this didn’t make sense.

“Like I said, your call,” Chuck told her. He stood there a second, and then nodded. “Okay, good to meet you neighbor.”

She nodded, and closed the door. She watched through the keyhole, as he stood there a second. He then turned and went back into his apartment. After he shut the door, she tossed the Nerf gun onto the table, and stared at it in disgust.

She walked back to the refrigerator, and opened the door. She grabbed the bottle of wine, pulled it out, took off the cap, and drank straight from the bottle.

Who the hell was this guy, and why was he running a CIA exercise?

}o{

It had been two days since he had knocked on her door. The Nerf gun still laid on the table by the front door.

She was pissed.

There was no other way to describe it. Since she had left the agency, she still tracked people’s movements. She still knew where every exit was located. She still did the unconscious things her father and the CIA had taught her.

But now, she was doing conscious work. Work she had never wanted to do again.

She had out her small notebook at all times, making notes on the tall man with curly hair across the hall from her. Any time she heard his door open, she would move quickly and silently to her peephole to see what was going on, and make notes.

She still wasn’t sure what to do with everything she had gathered. He was either the greatest spy she had ever encountered in her life…or he wasn’t a spy.

He didn’t keep a low profile. He talked to everyone.

She had watched him in the lobby of the apartment building. If he knew she was watching him he didn’t show it. She scoffed. Of course he didn’t know she was watching him.

She never saw him offer anyone else a Nerf gun.

She was currently leaning against her counter in the kitchen, staring daggers into the Nerf gun, sipping a glass of wine.

She reached over, and grabbed the note book. Chuck Bartowski. Probably Charles. Six foot three or four. Approximately one hundred ninety pounds. Little to no apparent physical training.

She had watched him get mail out of his mailbox, lose his grip on it, and nearly crash into a wall trying to secure the envelope.

Again, either he was the greatest spy there ever was, or he was a civilian.

But if he was a civilian, why did he know about The Great Nerf War?

It wasn’t that he just knew about it, he called it the proper name.

Bryce used to brag about how he used it in the past to meet his mark.

She shook her head, put down the notebook, and picked up her glass of wine. She stopped mid-way through bringing the glass to her mouth, hearing a knock on the door across the hall.

She moved quickly and silently over to the peephole, and saw a short man with an impressive beard be welcomed by Chuck. The short man went inside and Chuck shut the door.

She moved over to the couch, and picked up the headset to listen in on the bug she had planted in his apartment.

}o{

It had been about thirty minutes of the two of them gaming, when Morgan paused the game.

“Something wrong, Buddy?” Chuck asked.

“I should be asking you,” Morgan pointed out. “Twice you’ve had me dead to rights, and twice you were slow to react on the shot. What’s eating you, Chuck?”

“Nothing,” Chuck replied, shaking his head. He got up, and took his glass into the kitchen to refill it. Morgan followed. “Really, nothing.”

“Uh-huh,” Morgan agreed. “Chuck, buddy. You’ve been my bestest bud my whole life, and I know when your nothings are nothings and when they’re something. That nothing was a serious something.”Chuck stood at the counter, and looked at his friend. “I think…I think I made someone not like me.”

“Oh,” Morgan said, nodding. “As bad as in ninth grade when you were looking at Becky, walked into the trash can, flipped into it, your tray flew out of your hand, and your uneaten Jell-o hit Mr. Saterly in the face?”

Chuck was silent a moment. “I…I don’t know,” Chuck admitted.

“Okay, tell Uncle Morgs what’s wrong,” Morgan said. Chuck started to protest and Morgan held up his hand. “Chuck.”

“Fine,” Chuck muttered. “I…Awesome brought over some Nerf guns, thinking I’d have trouble meeting people, and building a relationship with them.”“When do you have building a relationship with people?” Morgan asked.

“Normal people,” Chuck replied as gently as possible.“Fair,” Morgan said.

“So, I knocked on my next door neighbor’s door and realized I was holding a gun, and kinda freaked out and made her take it and told her everything, and she shut the door in my face,” Chuck confessed.

Morgan stood there, attempting to hold a straight face. “So, you didn’t get her name or nothing?” Morgan asked.

“No,” Chuck said. “I knew it was a stupid idea to try it. But Awesome kept saying it helped me meet people.”

“Didn’t Bryce give the gun to you in college?” Morgan asked.Across the hall, Sarah nearly dropped the headphone she was holding against her ear.

}o{

It was eleven o’clock, and she still couldn’t sleep. His friend had said Bryce.

Chuck Bartowski had met Bryce when Bryce had given Chuck a Nerf gun.

Bryce. It wasn’t possible was it?

She huffed, and threw her covers off of her. She padded over to the closet, and began to dig. She found what she was looking for a few minutes later. She pulled out the phone, and hesitated.

She didn’t want to do this, but she needed some help. She didn’t have access any more like she used to.

She could make the call, or go back to bed and toss and turn for the rest of the night. She gritted her teeth and typed.

You up?

She stared at it, and knew what the answer would be if she sent the message. She hit send.

She laid the phone down and a second later phone dinged.

For you, always. Followed by a winky face emoji and a smiley face emoji.

Sarah couldn’t help but roll her eyes, amused. She hit the call button.

“Late night booty call?” the teasing voice asked on the other end.

“No, I need help,” Sarah said.

“Always straight to business,” the voice on the other end answered. “Never any foreplay with you.”“Carina,” came Sarah’s tired voice.

“Finnneeee,” Carina replied. “What’s the problem?”

Sarah explained it to her in detail.

}o{

“So, want me to come over and interrogate him?” Carina asked. “It sounds like I might break him, and you know I’m not into buying anything.”

“I just need you to run a check on him,” Sarah said. “I don’t need you to sexually harass him.”

“Sexually harass?” Carina asked, hurt in her voice. “Blondie, it wouldn’t be any harassment.”

“That is for the person you are harassing to decide,” Sarah gently reminded her.

“Hmmph,” Carina grunted. “Fine, I’ll do the boring job. What are you going to do?”

“If it’s a trap, I need to spring it,” Sarah said. She had been thinking about this for two days now. She knew what she needed to do.

“Time for The Great Nerf War?”

“Yeah,” Sarah answered. “I need to know the answer.”

“Be careful, Blondie,” Carina told her. “The odds of this being a civilian aren’t high.”

“Do I detect worry in your voice?”

“No,” Carina said. “But if something happened to you, as your emergency contact-”

“You’re not my emergency contact,” Sarah said, cutting her off.

“Rude,” Carina said. “Gotta bounce.” With that she hung up.

“That actually went better than I expected,” Sarah said to herself.

A/N: Next time:“Hey,” she heard a voice call from far away. His hands were up in the air as she turned and saw him. She had drawn her Nerf gun, ready to go into the apartment and get in a few shots. “You cannot shoot outside of the building. I know I never said so earlier, but that’s a rule.”She had known it was a rule. And so had he. How?

She aimed the gun at him. “How do you know I’m a rule follower?”

He squinted his eyes at her, and then lowered his hands. “I just do.”

“I really should shoot you,” she told him.

“You should,” he agreed. “What if I buy you ice cream instead?”

Gosh…is that….banter?