Fic: Freezing Your Tortured

[samecgh]

Title: Freezing Your Tortured
Fandom: Chuck
Prompt: Cuddling for warmth (hc bingo)
Medium: fic
Wordcount: 1405
Rating: PG
Warnings: Description of wounds after torture, description of a bodily fluid
Summary: Chuck gets himself locked in a freezer, where someone has a human body hanging up. At least the body was alive.
AN: I'm not sure this is really 'cuddling', but I'm going to go for it.


Casey was behind the counter; Sarah was mingling in the crowd and Chuck had been hacking into a computer for information. “Who are you?” a guard demanded, stopping in the office.

He started panicking and tried to come up with a reasonable excuse. Hello sir, I'm with the BuyMore Nerd Herd and that's not going to work because I'm not in my uniform! “Sorry, sorry. I wanted to check my email and Facebook since my girlfriend took my phone and this one was unoccupied and I was hoping,” he babbled.

“Shut up,” he yelled, grabbing his arm and dragging him from the desk. He started back up his talking in the hopes that the guard would just think he was some drunk guest that couldn't do anything more than bang on the keyboard.

“I need to get back to the party; my girlfriend's probably pissed at me,” he tried, uselessly pulling on his arm. The guard was walking him to the back of the house, where there was a walk-in freezer that would have been more at home in a restaurant than a house. The lock pin was pulled from the handle and he threw Chuck in before shutting it. He slammed himself into the door, hoping that it would fall open. Instead, he just hurt his shoulder. “Ow,” he moaned, rubbing it.

Something behind him groaned.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, they trapped me in here with something that will kill me. Turning around slowly, he spatted two rows of meat hanging on butchers hooks. One area had been cleared of meat, but there was something hanging there.

Through mottled bruises, a swelled and closed eye and dried blood covering exposed skin, he saw a man suspended by taped hands. Chuck carefully got closer to see him. Closer inspection showed the man to have been there a while, blue tinged lips and slightly frosted skin standing out. He also realized it was Bryce.

Immediately, he started looking for a way to lift him off the hook and get him down. “Okay, okay,” he muttered. Wrapping his arms around Bryce's legs, he lifted until the tape unstuck from the hook and he fell forward. Bryce tried, but failed to withhold a strangled scream as his ribs hit Chuck's shoulder. “Shi- sorry,” he apologized, sliding him down. His arms ended up around Chuck's neck, feet just barely off the floor.

Now, Chuck worried about getting his temperature up. Bryce wasn't showing any signs of recognition of him and he wasn't trying to figure it out. Okay, body heat's works the best. Thank you Ellie for the First Aid course you signed me up for. The cold was just starting to get to him, but it didn't stop Chuck from opening up his top layer to get Bryce closer. “Bryce, can you talk?” he asked, trying to press him close but watching his ribs. “Come on, I can't tell if this is working.” He started rubbing his arms up his back and felt more damage.

Sarah, Casey, you can show up now. He felt uncomfortable and ridiculous. Bryce wasn't moving; he could barely hear his breathing, which had a rattle that scared him. It'll be warmer near the door. It should be warmer near the door. He really doubted that it would make that much of a difference, but being closer to the door meant being closer to get out.

Shuffling over was a challenge. He couldn't lift his feet very high to move. The shuffling also made a foot fall off his shoes. The hiss in pain had Chuck looking down to see he also didn't have anything on his feet. Getting the foot back on his shoe, he went slower. It only felt a little warmer near the door, but it was better than the back. “Come on, Bryce, talk to me,” he pleaded. He might have heard a moan, but that could have been from pain.

He shucked off the top layer he had, a plain button-up, and tried to place it around Bryce's body. He ended up having to carefully lower his arms from around his neck to get them in front to place the shirt around his shoulders. After he got it to stop falling, he went back to rubbing to warm him up. “Ellie's planning her wedding. They, her and Devon, were arguing about bands and Jeffster ended up auditioning,” he mentioned. He felt a little relieved when he heard a huff, but didn't feel too good about it.

The door opened and Chuck expected the boss of the guard. “Vine's ending the part. He found two guests having sex in his bed,” Sarah said. Chuck just nodded and handed over the drive to her. Bryce wouldn't move on his own, and he couldn't carry him fireman style, so he knelt to get by his knees and lifted him up. There was a light moan from the movement of his ribs, but he didn't do anything else.

Sarah led them out a side door, where a guard let them pass after a story about a drunken fight. The van was slightly warm and Chuck felt himself starting to sweat when she passed a blanket to get on both of them. Bryce still felt iced next to him and the rattling started getting louder. “Uh, Sarah?” he worried.

“Don't worry, Chuck, the substation will be ready to accommodate him when we head there,” she tried calming. It didn't relieve him when the next rattle came up. He just tried to readjust the blanket for Bryce more than him.

()

When Bryce woke up, the first thing he saw was Chuck.

That confused him.

Then he noticed the medical equipment and the phone in Chuck's hand. Everything past the shut in the freezer was blurry, although he remembered something about Jeffster?

“Wha...” he moaned, his mouth not able to talk.

The noise was enough to alert Chuck, as he stopped playing on his phone and jumped up. “Hey, you're awake,” he grinned. The obviousness made him glare a little at Chuck. “You've been unconscious for the last two days; I'm allowed to say it.” He rolled his eyes and tried to talk again, sticking on the same word. Then he started coughing.

Chuck helped him get to a sitting position so he could take in more air, resulting in something flying on his blanket. “Ugh,” he moaned, seeing the phlegm now on his blanket.

“Eww,” Chuck joined in, grabbing a few tissues and wiping up as best he could before throwing it in the basket. He also pulled out a few more before handing them to Bryce. While he was coughing more stuff up, he poured some of the water into the paper cup and waited.

The water was warm, but it helped his throat and something in his stomach felt good. “What's Jeffster?” he croaked.

“Oh, you remember that?”

“Yeah.” Chuck wanted to set him back down to get the chair and sit next to him, but he was stopped when the coughing started up again. He kept Bryce up as he got more phlegm up and held the basket as several tissues. Then Bryce tipped against him, head firmly against his shoulder.

“Uh, Bryce?”

“Mmm?”

“What are you doing?”

“Warm.” Chuck pulled up the blanket to cover him better and then tried to place him back down on the bed. Bryce instead wrapped an arm around to keep himself in place.

“Bryce, let Chuck go,” a voice commanded. Sarah stood in the door frame, an amused look on her face of her ex cuddling her fake boyfriend.

“No,” he pouted, actually trying to get closer. Chuck squawked as Bryce was squished himself against him. “You also haven't explained what Jeffster is.”

He whined, “Sarah, little help?”

She helpfully responded, “Bryce, lay back down; your ribs were cracked.” This did nothing as he stayed on Chuck. “I need to get him back to Ellie.” He groaned, but let go and laid himself down. Chuck re-arraigned the blanket to cover him more.

Bryce curled into the blanket as much as he could. “Explain Jeffster,” he demanded.

“Later, after we get Vine,” he pledged, “And when your ribs heal.”