a_littlefaith | (no subject)

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chuck

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Beth hasn't had the car for very long, just a few weeks, but it does what it's supposed to. She'd made sure to find something safe, something she would feel comfortable putting Judith into, and she'd done a lot of homework and research to make sure she wasn't getting take advantage of.

It's been a long time since she's been behind the wheel of a car, but it turns out to be the sort of thing one doesn't forget all that easily and she passes the test on her first try, officially certifying her to be allowed to drive in Darrow.

While she's mostly content with walking and public transportation, she has to admit it makes certain things a lot simpler. Getting groceries is no longer a giant hassle, because she can just load her bags into the trunk and head home, where she gets Carl to help her bring them upstairs. Getting to and from gigs at bars that are further away from home is so much better. Ever since those guys had busted her guitar, she's been a little nervous walking home with it late at night, but with the car she just has to throw it in the backseat and everything is fine.

The next step, though, is the most important one. Teaching Chuck Hansen to drive.

When she pulls up and parks in front of the building where he's living now, she can't help but stare. She knows his friends had left him their condo, but she'd had no idea it was so fancy and she almost can't picture Chuck being comfortable in there. She sends him a quick text to let him know she's there, then leans back in her seat and turns up the radio and waits.

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The whole prospect is, admittedly, a little surreal. Granted, Chuck could say the same of most of the life he's somehow wound up with in Darrow, but when he'd joked about not being able to drive, he hadn't expected Beth to actually make good on teaching him. She's here, though, and even if he isn't sure there's much of a point in a city with a perfectly decent public transportation system, there also isn't really any reason not to do it. Besides, while he would never have guessed that he would wind up being friends with his ex — when the prospect of having an ex-girlfriend in the first place is something of a strange one to him, even after all this time — he can't say he minds it. The things he'd liked about Beth in the first place haven't changed, and he's pretty sure that she gets him in a way that very few others have. If nothing else, it'll be fun, something they can laugh about later, and they'll have a chance to catch up.

Be right down, he texts back, and a few minutes later, he's making his way out and over to where she's parked, opening the passenger door. "Nice ride," he says, half-teasing. "This new?"

"Well, new to me," she says with a laugh, because it's clearly not new in the strictest sense of the word. "Not as nice as your place is, though, jeez. Talk about swanky. How weird do you feel in there?"

She would feel weird. While it's true Chuck was something of a hero back home, she still gets the sense that the pilots were, in a lot of ways, working class. Or at least that's where they'd come from. Maybe she's wrong in that, but Chuck has never given her the sense he's the sort of guy who feels at home in the midst of a bunch of rich people.

"C'mon, get in while you tell me how weird is it bein' rich," she says with a grin. "I'm gonna drive you out to a parking lot so you don't crash my car the first week I've got it."

"I think weird is an understatement," Chuck says as he climbs into the car and fastens the seatbelt. Growing up, when he was very young, they weren't struggling to make ends meet or anything of the sort, but they certainly didn't live anywhere as upscale as this. Besides, that all changed when the world ended, something he thinks Beth would understand. Her apocalypse may not have been the same as his, but the effects of such things, as far as he can tell, are probably somewhat similar. "On both counts. If it hadn't been left to me, there's no way I'd live there, but..."

He shrugs, noncommittal. The truth of the matter is, even if he wanted to go to the trouble of finding a new place to live and selling this one, it wouldn't feel right just to pass the condo off to some stranger. Between that and the money Sally left him, though, it's a really fucking strange situation to be in.

"But they left it for you, so it feels weird to let it go," she answers, checking over her shoulder before she pulls out into the street and then heads in the direction of the big box store she's been thinking of. They're going to be closing soon, so their parking lot will be mostly empty at this point and it's a good place to start to learn.

"I still have Daryl's crossbow in my closet," she tells him. "It's too big for me, I can't really use it, so it's mostly useless. I should probably give it to someone who can get some use out of it, but it feels weird to even think about doin' that."

Because it was Daryl's. And now it's hers.

"Yeah, exactly," Chuck says, nodding. It isn't as if his relationship with either Newt or Kate was anything like hers with Daryl, but the principle of the thing is still the same. Even if it's more space than he could ever possibly need, even if living like a rich person — or at least a fairly upper class one — is something he'll never be entirely comfortable with, he can't just give it up. The same goes for Sally's money. He's considered giving it all to charity, and he did give a little of it, mostly because it wouldn't have felt right not to, but it's too easy to imagine her scoffing and rolling her eyes and saying she should have given it to someone who would appreciate it, so he can't give it up. It is, in fact, a surprisingly pleasant thing to imagine, her getting all indignant like that.

He's not sure what was between them, and it's probably for the best that he never had to break it off with her, which he would have, but he'd still cared about Sally in a way he has for few others. Still misses her, too, for that matter, even if he'd never say so.

"I could live there forever and I don't think it would ever be any less weird, though."

"I bet they wouldn't want you to feel weird, though," Beth points out. "I bet if you sold it and used the money to buy yourself a place where you were comfortable, they'd be happy with that."

Beth hadn't really known Kate or Newt all that well. Newt had been nice enough to her and Kate had given her hell that one time in the street because she'd broken up with Chuck, but she knows they'd both loved him. To Beth, that means they'd want him to be wherever he felt good.

"Where would you be most comfortable?" she asks curiously. "I'd just about kill to be able to get a place outside the city, but that's not gonna happen for awhile yet."

"The thing is, I don't know," Chuck says with a small, rueful smile, shrugging. "I never got a chance to figure that out before, and here, it's..." Everything about Darrow seems meant to be as confusing as possible, an adjustment he doesn't know how to make with the life he's had. This isn't just returning to the rest of society after the end of a war; this is living in a world that never experienced one at all, and after giving so much of his life to it, he doubts he'll ever really be able to fathom that. He was too young before the kaiju attacked to get a grasp on what he thought the future would be like. Now, he mostly just gets by from day to day. "Somewhere smaller, maybe, less upscale, but I don't know how much difference it would really make."

"Chuck Hansen, gonna be uncomfortable everywhere," she teases, although she doesn't really believe that at all. Unlike her, though, he hadn't had a normal world, in the sense that Darrow is normal anyway. Beth can remember a time before the walkers, but Chuck has never had anything but the kaiju attacking and she can understand how it would be more difficult for him to adjust than it is for her.

"Just do it," she suggests as she pulls into the parking lot and then steers toward the back end of the lot. "Sell it and find yourself somewhere smaller. The only way you'll know is if you test it out, right? And it's not like you're gonna make it worse."

"That's true," Chuck says, head tilting to the side, and then laughs. "Don't know what I'd do with that money, either, but I'd figure it out. Or just leave it alone." There's always a good cause for something like that, at least. Maybe he could even ask Beth if she needs any instruments or equipment or anything like that. He could try to find something nice for Laura, too, though he doesn't know what, and the idea alone makes him feel suddenly warmer, as if his thoughts could somehow be apparent.

The truth of the matter is, he doesn't know what the two of them are or what they're doing together. He just knows that it's rare that he feels much of anything for anyone, and yet Laura has proven to be an exception to that rule. If there's anyone to talk to about it, it's probably, inexplicably, Beth, but he wouldn't have the first goddamn idea where to start.

"Maybe keep it so you can buy nice gifts for your friends down the line," she teases as she turns off the car and then moves the seat back. Chuck is going to need a lot more room than she does when it comes to driving and she wants to make sure he doesn't immediately smash his knees when he first gets in.

"Or a girlfriend," she says, looking over at him with as innocent an expression as she can muster. Chuck had been a good boyfriend to her, no matter what he might think, and maybe they hadn't been meant to be, but she's sure there's someone out there for him. He deserves it, too, he deserves to be happy and to have someone love him.

It's almost like she's read his damn mind, though Chuck suspects he would feel just as self-conscious if he hadn't already been thinking about it. Though he doesn't even know if Laura is his girlfriend, having never stopped to put a label on it, the fact is that he has little experience with this sort of thing. No one knows that better than Beth does, who'd put up with him when he thought no one else would. That should make it easier to talk to her about it than anyone else. Easier, though, isn't saying very much.

"I'm... sort of seeing someone, actually," he says, voice lilting up into a question, mouth curled in a slight frown. "Or, I don't know if that's what it is, but it's something, I guess. Pretty new, still."

"What?" Beth asks and she's relieved the car is already in park and turned off when he says that. Her voice doesn't come out too shrill or squeaky and she's pretty sure they're both grateful of that, but there is a smile blooming, even as Chuck frowns. The fact that he's not brushing it off or even just outright keeping it to himself means it has to be something and Beth can't help but smile for him. It makes her happy, knowing there's someone who cares about him.

"Chuck, that's great," she says, then reaches out and pokes the corner of his mouth where he's frowning. "This is the wrong way, though, it's supposed to be goin' up and not down."

She knows better than to pry, she'll let him have his privacy and won't ask any of the zillions of questions she wants to, but she does say, "If you need to talk about it any time, you know I'll listen. I don't even think it'll be that weird, y'know?" They broke up a long time ago now and Chuck's more her friend than he is her ex-boyfriend.

"It's not as weird as I thought it would be," Chuck admits, unable to help his slight amused, if vaguely exasperated, smile when she pokes the corner of his mouth. All things considered, it probably should be strange and uncomfortable, talking about a relationship or a potential relationship or whatever the hell it is with his ex. He'd never had a girlfriend before Beth. A long time has passed since then, though, and it's not like he holds any of that against her. Above all else, they're friends. There are few people who've ever known him as well as Beth does, even if some of that is despite his own stubbornness and best attempts at trying not to let that be the case.

She had him figured out practically from the beginning. It's no surprise that that's only become truer.

"We haven't put a label on it. I don't even know if it's... exclusive, or whatever." He rolls his eyes at the word and how juvenile all of this sounds. It's no wonder he has so little experience with relationships. "But I know I like her."

"Well, that's a really good place to start," she says, her smile growing wider, but more gentle. It's just a good thing to hear from Chuck and she wants him to have that happiness, to be somewhere he can be himself. He tries to keep himself separated from so much in this world and she can understand why, it's not like she hasn't been through awful things, too, but she wants more for him.

"And this is a good place to start driving," she adds, turning to her door to open it. She stretches her legs once she's out, then crosses to the other side of the car and passes the keys to Chuck. "Let's see if you can drive a car as well as you can pilot a giant monster killing robot."

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess probably not," Chuck says, though there's a trace of humor in his voice as he gets out of the car and walks around to the driver's side, taking a seat. He has to make a few adjustments once he has, moving the seat back a little more, making sure he can actually see out of the mirrors. For all that he might not know what he's doing, he isn't so clueless that he doesn't know how to do this safely. He's just glad that they're starting in a parking lot. A monster-killing robot is one thing, but he'd been connected to that; all he needed to do was move his body. A car takes a different sort of focus.

Taking a deep breath, he glances over at her, fastening his seatbelt as he does. "But yeah, I guess it's not a bad place to start, right? It's... something. I don't really know what it is about her, but I know it's something." It's more than just wanting to sleep with her, at any rate, but he thinks Beth will be able to pick up on his meaning well enough. That part is easy for him. It's anything more emotional that becomes difficult.

"So you gotta keep your foot on the brake to start the car," Beth says, then grins teasingly. "The brake is the one on the left. Then you just turn the key and you've started it."

The rest of what he says makes her smile soften. These are the sorts of things she really ever expected to be talking about with Chuck, but the way he says it, like it's all something bigger than anything else he's done before, it makes her happy for him. And happy to listen, too, because while she knows she's far from an expert when it comes to relationships, she also thinks she has some experiences Chuck doesn't. Which is probably not something either of them would have ever expected.

"Is she easy to be around?" she asks. That's always a good first sign, she thinks.

"I don't know if easy's the word for it," Chuck says, though it's clear enough from the tone of his voice that he doesn't necessarily see that as a bad thing. He pauses then to start the car as she's instructed, probably focusing on it a bit more than is necessary. For all that, logically speaking, it should probably pale in comparison to piloting a Jaeger, it's nothing he's used to, nothing he's ever actually done for himself. It does what it's supposed to, though, even if he thinks it might make a strange noise for a fraction of a second before the engine actually turns over, and then he nods before he glances at Beth. They aren't in anyone's way here; he can delay a moment. "But I... know I want to get things right, when I'm around her. I don't want to say the wrong thing. And that doesn't happen often."

Just as she once told him that she wanted him to know the real her, he gets the impression, too, that Laura sees him for who he is and likes him anyway. It's hard to understand that, but hell, he isn't going to complain.

Beth smiles, wondering who this girl is, but she won't go snooping around to try and figure it out. If Chuck ever wants to introduce them, that's one thing, but she doesn't think he'll appreciate if she starts trying to work it out on her own.

She likes the friendship they've cultivated now, she doesn't want to do anything that might jeopardize that.

"You'll get things right," she says simply, because she believes he can. Chuck is so much better than he thinks he is and Beth wants to remind him they hadn't broken up because he'd been a bad boyfriend or cruel to her, but she's not sure how welcome that will be. It's the truth, though. They just hadn't been where they were supposed to end up.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Chuck says, letting out a wry laugh, mostly to hide the truth of it. Though he would very much like it not to be the case, sometimes he still can't get his father's words out of his head, accusing him of not being a good person, as if he ever had a chance to learn how to be anything other than what he is. Where Beth is concerned, he fully believes that the end of their short-lived relationship wasn't anything he did, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to fuck it up with someone else. He doesn't know how to do that sort of thing. He's barely had any experience at all. Hell, he has no idea what this is in the first place.

Shrugging, he adds, "I don't really even know what she wants. If she'd be interested in... something more."

Beth has a feeling that's probably not something he needs to really worry about. Chuck is pretty great, even if he doesn't think so most of the time and if he likes this girl, she's pretty willing to bet she likes him in return.

"Well, if you need advice... you should probably ask someone else, actually," she says, laughing. "I'm not very good at this stuff either."

She's had some really good dates and relationships in Darrow, but most of that was up to other people. Curtis is the sort of man she'll compare all others to and she knows that maybe isn't entirely fair, but he set the bar pretty high.

"You've had things work out before," Chuck says with a shrug. The beginning and the end of his relationship experience, meanwhile, is Beth, and though he knows it's not on him that it didn't work out — it was more about the circumstances than anything else — it still leaves him fairly clueless. He almost wonders if it might be easier not to try at all, only he never gets very far when he considers that. There's something about Laura. Maybe he doesn't know what it is, but he does know that it's there. "It's... She had things pretty bad, back home. I don't want to make that worse."

Even saying it, it seems incongruous with how he acts so much of the time, but it isn't like he's ever gone out of his way to be an asshole. He just hasn't often had much cause to make an effort to be nice.

"I think that's been a lot of luck on my part," Beth says, because she certainly hadn't planned for Curtis. He had just sort of happened, one wonderful accident after another, one intimate conversation after another until they hadn't been able to deny there was something between them any longer.

"How would you make it worse?" she asks, looking at him. "If you care about her and want her to be happy, I don't see how that could possibly make anything worse. Havin' someone like that, knowin' they care, that means a lot."

"Yeah, I guess it would," Chuck says, almost like he's a little surprised by the truth in that logic. It's still hard to apply it to himself, especially when he doesn't know how much about Laura he should share. Her history isn't really his business, nothing it's his right to go publicizing. Beth is a friend, though, one of the closest ones he's got here, and he thinks maybe he can try to hedge it well enough. "She's... been hurt before, I mean. Physically. And had guys who were only interested in sex. I don't want to seem like I'm one of them, you know? I don't want to push her."

He still remembers, too vividly, how he found her on the beach, bruised and bloody and practically naked, wrapped in a plastic tarp. He hadn't needed to ask, then, what happened to her; the scene spoke for itself. What he's found out since, though, makes it all a hell of a lot worse. "'Course, I don't just want to tiptoe around her, either."

Beth nods and she doesn't know exactly what that's like, but she can imagine there's a fine line between the two. It's a weird thing, because she'd never been hurt, not like that, but the memories of Gorman are still there. So even though he'd never actually put his hands on her, on this body here, she has the memories of him having done so. She doesn't want to claim she knows what it's like, being assaulted like that, but in some weird Darrow sort of way, she does.

"Can you tell her that?" she asks. "Just be honest and say what you said to me. And tell her she can be honest with you, too, because I think..."

She pauses, her nose wrinkling a little. "I got all those memories, remember? And the worst was... well, y'know, but there were other things, too. One of the cops at that hospital did awful things to the women there and he tried with me and- and anyway, I think it's just important she knows she can be honest with you. That she can change her mind and you're not gonna push or be mad."

Though the idea of Beth being assaulted like that isn't anything he likes thinking about, Chuck would be lying if he said it didn't help a little to hear it from her, and not just as a theoretical sort of thing. Granted, it's not like anyone's experience will be exactly the same, and he knows it makes him fortunate that he can't begin to imagine that, but there's a small measure of reassurance in that. So, too, is there in her phrasing. That someone tried with her doesn't make it any better, but at least he didn't succeed in what he was trying to do. The thought alone makes Chuck feel vaguely murderous. There's nothing to do with that, though, except go hit something later.

He might be violent, prone to picking fights, but save for several people he's punched in bars after too much to drink, he'd never do so with anyone who couldn't fight back and hold their own, and never with that sort of intent.

"Not sure talking about feelings is really my strong suit," he points out. "But yeah, maybe. I don't want to bring it up, but I don't want it to be this... thing, either, that's always overhead." Pausing a moment, he glances over at her. "I won't ask about it, but please tell me you beat the shit out of that asshole."

It's not a good memory, not by any means, but Beth finds herself smiling grimly anyway. The same thing has happened to other people in Darrow with their memories and she's not sure how they've reconciled it, the new memories with what they've actually lived through, but Beth has to treat them as if they've really happened. Because they have in a way.

"There was this jar on the desk beside me," she says. "Y'know how doctors sometimes keep suckers for kids. It was a jar like this. I smashed it on his head."

She doesn't tell him about the candy Gorman had forced into her mouth. How even now the sickly sweet taste of artificial green apple makes her stomach churn.

"And I left him there," she says and she doesn't feel guilty about this at all. "With a dead body. A girl he'd... he'd been raping her. She killed herself because of it, so I left him there and she reanimated and killed him."

"Good," Chuck says, simple and definitive, his jaw set and his head ducking in a slight nod. The bastard deserved it, as far as he's concerned. Maybe there were no zombies in his world to take care of the matter that efficiently, but he'd gladly have beaten the face of someone like that to a bloody pulp, or left them on the street during an attack with the rest of whatever city safe underground. Whatever awful things people have said or thought about him, however true they might be, he isn't heartless. And though he hates the idea of anyone trying to hurt Beth as much as he hates the idea of someone hurting Laura, there's some consolation in the fact that she made him pay for it. "I hope he died slowly and painfully."

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