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Being Bryce Larkin

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He’s not going to count Chuck. Chuck wasn’t a mistake.

 

mistake one

Getting employed by the CIA is his first mistake as Bryce. It ruins a perfectly good alias, for one thing. For another, The Man has his fingerprints on file. But eh, it's pretty fun and that's a good trade-off.

 

mistake two

Happens in a bar in Algiers in '04. He gets himself dosed with some fucked-up cocktail until he doesn’t know his own name and is captured by some petty thugs. He’s traded across at least three borders before they get slack and forget to keep him under. He realises he’s nowhere good when he wakes up barely dressed in sheer shalwar kameez and cuffs; takes off out of the nearest window, leaping for the roof and pulling himself up with difficulty, his arms shaking as he creeps across the building, and he curses as he tries to work out how long he was out of it if his muscles are groaning from disuse.

He finds a long niqab in a bedchamber after dropping down to a balcony, and a little while later, lowering his eyes demurely, he slips out into the city marketplace with the women, quickly losing himself in the crowd. The American Embassy in Doha filter him through their system and out again without a murmur, a secure transport returning him to the relative safety of the US of A barely five weeks after his departure.

 

mistake three

Falling in love with Sarah is a mistake he’d happily make again and again. She’s skilled and smart and everything he wants; it kind of helps that she has her own secrets and respects his own need for privacy. It’s a rather rude wake-up call that she doesn’t come down on his side when it’s reported he’s gone rogue. He can’t help thinking he didn’t know her as well as he’d thought.

 

mistake four

Getting shot by Casey is a big one.

Okay, he was being all noble, and if you’re going to go out, it’s surely better to be being noble. Of course, no-one knew that and Casey had far too much satisfaction in his overconfident, “Don’t move!” 

Bryce could barely hear him over the panic of his own stuttering heartbeat, but he still had the wherewithal to respond with his own brand of fuck you.

But then he’d come back from that, waking up strapped to a hospital table with few options except get the fuck out of here, so maybe the mistakes he's making here are just in not controlling the situation. 

 

mistake five

He's a hypocrite. He doesn't see that it's a problem if he gets emotionally involved and caring (though he's burned his bridges with Chuck, there - even if Chuck does now know why he did it) but when he watches Sarah with Chuck, all he can see is the way it makes her hesitate, and that will get Chuck dead. And she will be devastated. He cares, he does, so he wakes them both up to the reality of it. And both resent him for it.

Sarah won't leave Chuck for reasons she hasn't admitted to herself yet, and Chuck is head over heels. Bryce is relegated to the sidelines for this game, it's a new experience for him and he doesn't quite like it even if he threw them together, but at least they're okay. They are okay, and will be okay. And that means he can be too, eventually.

 

not a mistake

Bryce needs to die.

He doesn't plan the exact details. Can't really. Too much is out of his control. He does have a handle on the where and how, though, so when the Ring agent identifies himself, Bryce knows that this is his chance. Probably his only chance, and if he gets it wrong he'll really be dead, and that will be ... restful, most likely - but it's not his preferred outcome.

The guy to his right is too close, too cocky, aiming his gun in Bryce's direction. The guy on his left is too smug with his team of gunmen. He can feel his lips curl into a smirk even as his body sways back and right, wresting control of the weapon to shoot at Smug and co. Cocky isn't a pushover by any means, though, so not one of his bullets hit their target. Bryce stops fighting for the weapon and holds on, turning them around, feeling the gunshots as Cocky is hit again and again. He can't hold Cocky's dead body up though, it's about to collapse and leave him vulnerable, so he darts for the Intersect door, ostensibly leaping into a bullet.

Okay, so that wasn't awesomely planned, and could technically be termed a mistake, but actually, it only winged him - a shallow slice through the soft flesh of his side. 

He's sitting there, contemplating his next move when Chuck falls through the ceiling and makes his decision for him. He bites the capsule in his mouth and swallows just as Chuck comes over, handsy and apologetic. His dying speech is pretty impressive, he thinks; if the drug making its way into his system wasn't so damn painful that he has to interrupt it to grimace, it would be perfect. He's been practising playing dead for this event, and when he does, eyes still open, Chuck is a mess and, yes, he feels guilt, but not enough to change his plan. He does close his eyes when Chuck decides to upload the Intersect instead of destroying it, (he's not having that crap in his head, thanks,) but he opens them again afterward, just for continuity and then he can feel it, his body slowing with the effects of the drugs. By the time the Ring agents are in the room, he's got no control over his body at all, and he can't respond to Sarah's anguished, "Don't you touch him!" though the sentiment is gratifying.

Ring agents remove him from the room and dump him with a colleague with a terse instruction to, "Put him in the car!" 

He's thrown over a broad shoulder and taken outside, before being laid out in the back of a limo. A tiny scratch is all he feels in his upper arm, and then he sees Anselmo's face, white teeth flashing in the dark, before his hand closes his eyelids for him. "Should have you back with us in a few hours. Rest up, dopey."

The drive is smooth, but he sleeps for most of it. 

When Anselmo changes to a staff car, he climbs in behind him, sliding his wrists into cuffs and sending a weary wmile into the rearview mirror. 

"You look like you need a long rest," Anselmo remarks, sliding effortlessly into traffic. "Gonna stay in there and finish Neal's sentence, this time?"

"Eh, maybe," he answers. "Got nothing better to do, for a while."

 

Forty minutes later, Anselmo hands him over to the reception officers with the appropriate paperwork.

"Your co-operation is appreciated," he says, an austere figure in a suit not inviting questions, nor appearing inclined to answer them.

Neal endures those questions about his activities, but doesn't give details; he can hear the guards' frustration as he's led out and he'd be amused if he wasn't so knackered.

"What exactly does 'helping the government' mean for a bloody forger?"

"I dunno, but I reckon they kept him up all night doing it."

"Aw, Kev. That's disgustin'!"