Chapter Text
The amazing thing about Christmas was, at least for Chuck, that no matter how bad the run-up to the holiday had been (and yesterday had been among the worst for a long time), he always woke up feeling hopeful. This was the day of the year when anything seemed possible - and not just in the oops now I have a top secret government supercomputer in my head, great birthday present thanks buddy, kind of way. But in the everyone I love is here and we're all together and how could anything ever be bad kind of way.
Despite Christmas Eve being a disaster of proportions even Chuck hadn't been able to fathom, Chuck awoke to that beautiful feeling of hope. The alarm clock beside him read 6:37 in glowing red letters, and Chuck couldn't tell what had woken him. They weren't due over at Awesome and Ellie's for breakfast until seven, and Chuck had never exactly been the kind of guy to be up with the sun. On the contrary, deep down he still mirrored Bryce in the belief that mornings were the creation of some perverse being.
Bryce nudged open Chuck's door, sending him a smile that rivalled even his most brilliant. "Oh good," he announced, settling two mugs on the nightstand. "You're awake."
Of course Chuck was awake. Apparently, through some weird Force thing, he had known his irritatingly perfect best friend (and very, very soon to be actual roommate one hundred percent of the time) was awake. What he was having a little trouble processing was the sight greeting him.
Bryce's beaming smile wasn't all that different from all the Christmases they'd celebrated together, and his bedhead was every bit as adorable as he'd let slip to Sarah. But, Bryce didn't usually sprawl himself onto Chuck's bed, juggling a mug and a square box with golden wrapping paper, while dressed in his PJs - or what passed for pyjamas in Bryce Larkin's supermodel world; festive flannel pants and an equally festive old Stanford hoodie that looked a little too big for him.
"Buon Natale!"
Chuck grinned at his best friend, face far too affectionate as he silently told him he was a massive dork. He might not speak the language, but he knew enough of Bryce's dorkiness to know what he was up to.
"Merry Christmas to you too, Bryce."
Bryce's eyes crinkled with the force of his smile, the superspy placing the present on Chuck's lap.
Chuck blinked at it, frowning up at him. "I thought we were doing presents at Ellie's?"
Bryce, because he was powered by caffeine and not dazed by the brilliance of his own smile, rolled his eyes fondly. "Shut up and open your present, Chuck."
Chuck picked at the edge of the paper, smiling to himself. "I haven't got something to give you."
Bryce's eye roll grew more exasperated and yet more fond. "You still moving in?"
"Try and stop me."
"Then chop chop, Bartowski," Bryce waved his free hand. "We don't have all day."
Chuck took a long and delicious sip of coffee, revelling in the face Bryce made at him. Bryce really was one of the most impatient people Chuck had ever met. So, why was he finding it so endearing?
Carefully, Chuck peeled away the tape, revealing a small wooden box that looked strangely familiar. He glanced up at Bryce; his best friend serious now, merely nodding for Chuck to open the box.
Chuck slowly did, recently oiled hinges making no sound. Inside, resting on a festive green cushion, was a wristwatch. Not the flashy kind that Chuck had to wear on missions, with GPS locators hidden inside, and not the more subtly flashy kind that Bryce wore on a daily basis. It wasn't that it was ordinary, that was the last thing it was, but it was ... sedate, important. The kind of watch that already had a history to it, an importance written into the heart of it.
Bryce watched him taking it in, an almost shy light in his eyes.
"I have definitely still got you the traditional presents to make everyone despair at our nerdiness, but I've been meaning to give you that for a while."
Chuck looked at the watch, the simple but old-fashioned face, the shine of the rim. He was taken back to the morning of their graduation, to the memory of Bryce perched on the end of his bed, staring at the watch before him. He hadn't said anything to Chuck, not then, but Chuck vividly remembered the sadness that had shone in his eyes.
"Bryce."
Bryce's eyes closed, just for a beat, just long enough to hide whatever he knew Chuck would see in his eyes. "You know how we never talk about our parents?"
As a matter of fact, Chuck did know that. Both of them with their very different reasons. "Yeah."
Bryce echoed Chuck's nod, sighing softly. "For the next twenty seconds, I'm going to break that rule-"
Chuck cut him off, words already falling from his lips. He didn't want to think about his dad right now; this was a time for the family who cared enough to show up. "I really don't want to-"
"I'm not talking about Orion," Bryce said swiftly, a sad little smile barely twitching his lips. "I'm talking about my dad."
Chuck blinked. Even drunk, Bryce had rarely spoken about his father; it was nothing short of a miracle for him to even mention him.
"He was a good man. Far better than his son. Not just for appearances or," Bryce smiled softly, nodding at Chuck, "for a few people. But truly good. I don't think he ever really had a bad word to say about anyone. Even our neighbour, and dad had that long-standing feud with him because they were-"
"Both on opposite sides of the civil war reenactments," Chuck remembered, mirroring Bryce's grin. It had comforted Chuck at Stanford, to know that even the impossibly good looking like Bryce came from nerdiness. "I wish I could have met him."
"He would have loved you," Bryce smiled, eyes wistful. "And not just because I do."
"I suppose it's only fair," Chuck smiled back, leaning into the lightness of the moment. "Ellie, I think, loves you more than me."
Bryce gave him that look that said he thought Chuck was being silly, unmoved from his path.
"That was his," Bryce said, nodding towards the watch resting innocently in it's box. "The life of a CIA agent doesn't really lend itself to keeping our sentimental items, but even if it did I'd want you to have that."
Chuck's fingers stopped absently circling the face of the watch, drawing back in surprise. He couldn't...
"Bryce-"
Chuck was treated to Bryce's most stubborn look. "And before you say I should give that to someone I love; buddy, that's you. I mean, you and Ellie, but I don't love her anywhere near as much as I love you." Bryce cleared his throat, eyes beginning to close off as if he'd realised he'd been too open; too vulnerable.
It was Christmas Day. Chuck was not letting Bryce think that. Not even for a second.
He threw his arms around Bryce, hugging him as tightly as he could. As soon as Bryce let him go, Chuck clasped the watch onto his wrist, lips lifting at how right it looked.
Bryce pulled him back into a quick hug, head resting on Chuck's shoulder. "Suits you."
"Thank you, Bryce," Chuck whispered, letting his voice show how overwhelmed he was by what Bryce had chosen to do.
"Anything and everything for you, Chuck," Bryce replied, honest as ever. "You know that." He cleared his throat, pressing Chuck's mug back into his hands. "Drink up, you know Ellie's going to have us on a tight schedule."
"You're going to have such a hard day," Chuck quipped, knowing it was what they needed. "Cooking pancakes, helping cook dinner. Sitting around the rest of the time watching The Twilight Zone in your PJs."
"Sarcastic comments like that, Charles, won't get you any pancakes."
"Yes they will," Chuck replied, swinging himself out of bed. "And you know why?"
Bryce followed him towards the bathroom, leaning against the doorway while Chuck brushed his teeth. "I have the feeling you're going to tell me, buddy."
Chuck grinned at him through the mirror. "Because you love me."
"You know, Chuck," Bryce called, apparently not hiding his silly smile. "One day that excuse is not going to work."
Chuck slipped back out, patting Bryce over the Stanford lettering on what he could have sworn was once his hoodie. "You'll let me know?"
"Yeah," Bryce agreed, hopelessly fond. "Now let's go surprise your sister, her fiance and your strange little friend with breakfast." Bryce paused, sending a frown over his shoulder. "You think if I feed him, he'll call me by my name today?"
"Probably not," Chuck shrugged, running his fingers absently over the band of his new watch. "But, who knows?"
Braving the relative chill of a California Christmas morning, they slipped out of their apartment, making their way across the courtyard. Before they crossed over to let themselves in to Ellie and Awesome's, Chuck stopped by Casey's front door. He knocked lightly, calling out a soft wish for Casey to have a happy holiday.
Once they were inside, the glow of fairy lights and soft Christmas music warming them, Bryce set to work. He put Chuck on coffeemaking duty, directing him to a festive blend he'd ordered for the holidays. While it was brewing, Chuck settled on a stool, alternatively watching Bryce mix pancake batter and sing softly with the music and staring at the watch on his wrist.
For all his best friend said he wasn't sentimental, Chuck knew he was. Bryce hoarded the things that meant the most to him; from their old TRS-80 to photographs and home videos from their college days, to the watch now resting on Chuck's wrist.
"I can help," Chuck offered, more because he knew he should than any expectation of Bryce actually letting him.
Bryce turned, effortlessly mixing pancake batter, his grin crooked and warm. Chuck's grin; the one that meant all was well in their world. "You are helping."
Chuck would ask how on Earth he was helping, but the answer would involve a long and convoluted strain of Bryce Larkin Superspy Logic and would basically boil down to the fact that Bryce was the kind of dork who thought that Chuck's mere presence constituted help.
"Okay, buddy," was all he said in reply, stepping back into the kitchen to pour out mugs of coffee.
Ellie, resplendent in deep green pyjamas with little reindeer all over them, yawned as she shuffled into the kitchen. Bryce, without breaking stride in cooking the first pancake, reached out and pressed a mug into Ellie's hand.
Ellie leaned against the counter by Chuck, both watching as the far too awake Larkin member of the weird extended Woodcomb-Bartowski-Larkin family they made carried on with more energy than either of the Bartowskis.
"I think he's about three coffees ahead of us," Chuck whispered wisely, Ellie humming an agreement.
"Four, actually," Bryce remarked, flashing another of those grins. "You were taking forever to wake up."
"You could have just woken me," Chuck reasonably pointed out, Bryce giving him a look of such disgusted horror.
"On Christmas morning?"
"Dork."
"I will give Ellie the first plate of pancakes," Bryce threatened, grin stealing wider over his face.
"You always do."
"But maybe I wouldn't if you were nicer to me."
"I'm always nice to you," Chuck protested, wide-eyed and innocent. "I just said you were a dork. Never that you weren't my dork."
Bryce narrowed his eyes at him, clearly trying to keep a very different smile from his lips. "Sweet talking me won't get you the first pancakes."
"My best friend loves my sister more than me," Chuck cried, swooning dramatically back against the counter just for the pleasure of watching Bryce fall forward with laughter.
"You are a nerd, Charles Bartowski," Bryce proclaimed, soft and endeared.
"And you're a dork, Bryce Larkin," Chuck gleefully retorted, because both were abundantly true. "What else is new?"
Ellie, who had settled back to enjoy the free entertainment they provided her, laughed softly. "That is, I think," she remarked, nodding at Chuck's wrist and the watch resting on it.
Chuck cradled it in his hand, smiling at his sister. "Bryce gave it to me."
"It was my dad's," Bryce added, plating up a stack of pancakes. He covered them over, getting to work on the next stack.
Ellie looked between them, her smile softening on her face. Then, she kissed both of them on the cheek. "I'll go wake Devon."
"No need, babe," Devon called, sweeping in with a kiss for his fiance. "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas," Chuck echoed, handing Devon a snowman patterned mug.
"Now we only have to wait for Morgan to wake up and we can start to eat," Bryce commented, slapping Chuck's hand away from Bryce's still mostly full mug. "That's mine."
"I'll get you another," Chuck shrugged, unrepentantly stealing it. "And we're living together officially again. What's yours is mine."
"As if it hasn't always been," Bryce muttered, but his eyes sparkled. "Oh, and Merry Christmas, Devon."
Devon flashed him a grin, helping carry plates and mugs over to the dining room table.
"What is this heaven I smell?" Morgan called, inhaling deeply as he left Chuck's old-yet-still-current room.
"Candycane coffee and gingerbread pancakes," Chuck announced, grinning at the sight of his oldest friend in an elf onesie. "Bryce's Christmas morning speciality."
Morgan sipped at the coffee, as dubious as anyone could be. "Hmm," he grudgingly sighed. "I suppose Chuck can keep you."
"If you like the coffee, you'll be remembering my name once you taste the pancakes," Bryce quipped, grinning over Morgan's shoulder at Chuck.
"Wouldn't count on it, Accountant," Morgan retorted, sinking into his usual chair at the table.
"A Christmas miracle too far," Bryce sighed, Chuck rolling his eyes. "Help me carry these in, Devon?"
"Is Sarah coming?" Ellie asked, frowning at the door.
Bryce glanced back at Chuck, something like concern flashing through his eyes. "No," he said, maneuvering the first platter of pancakes onto the table. "She said she can't make it."
"We'll have to have her over for New Year's then," Ellie decreed with all the certainty of having adopted another stray into the Bartowski clan. "Until then, Bryce; thank you for making breakfast, it looks delicious."
"Guaranteed to be Christmas on a plate," Chuck confirmed, although the pancakes really didn't need the hype.
"He had them for breakfast yesterday, too," Bryce smirked, tapping Chuck's ankle under the table. "I think I'm spoiling him."
"I could cook-"
"No!" Bryce cried, taken aback by the vehemence of his own reaction. "I mean, Chuck, buddy. I love my kitchen. Especially when it's not on fire."
Ellie muffled her laughter behind her hand, Devon inclining his head in apologetic agreement. And that, Chuck wanted noted, was not fair. He hadn't set a kitchen on fire in years.
"You're being mean to me on Christmas Day," Chuck pouted, trying very hard not to laugh. "See if Santa's brought you anything."
Bryce set a hand over his chest, face the picture of angelic innocence. "I've been an angel all year."
Morgan rolled his eyes, helping himself to another serving of pancakes. "You two just get cooler every year," he muttered, but the usual irritation with Bryce's presence was absent. "And I am going to need to give my mom the recipe for these, Accountant."
"Classified," Bryce twinkled, superspy irritating. "Even Chuck doesn't know."
"Chuck could know," Chuck pointed out, Ellie's smile broadening out of the corner of his eye. "If you told him."
"And why would I tell you when I can just make them for you?"
"Every Christmas for the rest of our lives?"
"I'm not going anywhere," Bryce shrugged, like it was as simple as that.
Chuck felt his face soften, warmth bursting through his chest. "I'll hold you to that."
"Please do," Bryce replied, perfectly sincere. He smiled, then drew Ellie into a conversation about the turkey they were cooking for Christmas dinner.
Chuck turned to his other side, letting Morgan pull him into one of their predictably wacky and incomprehensible discussions.
After the very last crumb of pancake was swept from their plates, they adjourned to the living room, pouring themselves onto the couch and the chairs. Morgan, who sprawled on the floor as he liked to do, handed out the presents. They ranged from the useful - Devon and Ellie's gifts to Chuck, Bryce and Morgan - to the tender - Devon and Ellie's gifts to one another. And, of course, to the nerdiest of the nerdy - the gifts that Bryce and Chuck gave to each other and Morgan gave to them. Morgan was even surprised with a collection of comic books he'd been searching for for years, mysteriously given to him by the all knowing Santa Claus.
Gifts given and opened, Chuck already mentally planning where to put his new collectibles in the apartment, it was time to switch on the gas fire and cue up The Twilight Zone. Chuck couldn't think of a better way to spend the day than that. Than just sitting with the people he loved, watching a classic sci-fi show, stomach full of good food and excellent coffee, with no expectations upon any of them than simply existing and enjoying themselves.
Every now and then, Chuck would lose his pillow, Bryce moving into the kitchen to help with the side dishes or to baste the turkey. But, he'd always return, and usually bearing steaming mugs of cocoa, and he'd get far too invested in an episode he'd seen dozens of times before, just as they all were.
Maybe it wasn't most people's idea of a traditional Christmas day. But that didn't matter. The Bartowski Christmas traditions worked for them and for the people they brought into their family. And, as they reluctantly rose from the living room to enjoy another impeccable meal, good company and flowing conversation, Chuck reflected that that was all they needed.
His life, their lives, didn't need to match some cookie cutter expectation. Ellie and Awesome were doctors who worked ungodly hours and yet never lost faith in the things that mattered. Morgan was going through some hard times but he never lost the joy for life that was so uniquely Morgan. Bryce was a government superspy who had been through more than Chuck could imagine, but he was here with them all, finding the same enjoyment in their celebration that he had since freshman year of college. And Chuck himself was still a supercomputer with a non-existent love life and a father that kept more secrets than even Chuck currently was (see: government supercomputer). But, that didn't matter. None of it did. They were all here, all happy. If it wasn't normal, Chuck didn't care because it was theirs and it was pretty much the most perfect Christmas Chuck had spent in his life.