Chuck doesn't really have an answer, other than the fact that Bryce said he needed his help. He's pretty sure that shouldn't be enough of an answer, but it is.

It doesn't end well, but it ends better than Chuck had predicted, so he and Bryce are willing to call it a toss. They're wearing less water and shaving cream than anyone else as they stroll through the halls of the frat house, so they're even considering calling it a victory - and Chuck doesn't want to think that he's more than willing to call anything that makes Bryce's eyes dance wickedly like that while he's all wet and soapy a victory - until they get to their room and the door bursts open like a surprise party gone wrong and they get ambushed, soaked with a makeshift hose, covered in perfume and shaving cream and, even more humiliating, stripped down to their underwear and dumped on the front lawn.

"This is all your fault, you know." Chuck is huddled in on himself, shivering in a mostly non-existent breeze. "I told you it wasn't going to work."

"It did work," Bryce reminds him.

"We were outplanned."

"We were not outplanned. We were outmaneuvered."

Chuck frowns, his brow wrinkling and making a funny noise as the shaving cream crackles and bits flake off. "I'm not seeing much of a difference."

"Outmaneuvered means that we didn't cover our flank."

"Yeah, well." Chuck shivers again. "My flank's not the only thing exposed right now."

Bryce looks at him and laughs, reaching out to scrape away the crust of shaving cream on Chuck's chin. "You look like Santa Claus after a bar fight."

"I look like a complete idiot. How did I end up getting the brunt of this. You were in front."

Bryce shrugs. "I ducked."

"You could have said duck."

"Then they would have aimed lower." Bryce turns his attention back to the window he's working on, easing a small piece of wire beneath it. Chuck's suggested breaking it fourteen and a half times now, the fifteenth time cut in half by Bryce's look. Still, he'd rather pay the fine for damaging fraternity property then spend the night hovering over Bryce's shoulder while he pretends he's MacGyver. "You're not helping."

"I know I'm not. Because I don't know what you're doing. Why don't you just break…" Chuck swallows the words and nearly swallows his tongue as Bryce holds up one finger and gives Chuck a look that warns him that any further talking is going to end very badly for one of them and it isn't going to be Bryce. "I'm going to go sit down."

"That would be great." Bryce turns his attention back to the window and Chuck sinks down on the grass beside the hedge not far from him. He feels completely useless, though he's grateful that their war game took place on the front of the frat house rather than the back, because sitting in his underwear is bad enough with the added humiliation of sitting in a small man-made pool of water.

"Hey, Bartowski!"

Chuck glances up at his name, getting a face full of water balloons and beer. He closes his eyes and sighs, spitting out the vile combination of beer and shaving cream. "This is starting to feel a lot more like losing, Bryce." He turns toward the window and Bryce is gone. "Bryce? Bryce!" He starts thumping his head against the wall, matching the rhythm with his own voice. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid." His head hurts before long, but it doesn't stop him. Nothing does until he hears the familiar sound of Bryce clearing his throat.

"You going to do that all night, Chuck?"

Chuck stops mid-thump and looks at the door of the frat house where Bryce is standing, dressed in a pair of sweats and what Chuck is certain is his R.E.M. shirt. "How'd you get inside?"

"I broke the window."

"No you didn't." Chuck gets up and goes over to the basement window. It's closed and locked up tight. "No. You didn't. Bryce."

"You want to argue about it or come inside, Bartowski?"

The actual answer is both, but Chuck just hurries up the steps and inside, shivering in the heat. He darts past Bryce and heads up the stairs toward their room, his arms crossed over his torso. Bryce grabs his arm and steers Chuck toward the bathroom at the end of the hall, keeping him away from their room. "You smell like a brewery and you look like a demented extra from a zombie movie. Get in the shower. I'll get your stuff."

Chuck does as he's told, and he's naked under the spray by the time he remembers to tell Bryce to stop bossing him around. It doesn't do any good though, even if he did tell him, he's relatively certain Bryce wouldn't listen. Not sure he wants Bryce to, if he's honest, because the water and the steam both feel far too good to complain.

"You alive in there, Bartowski?"

"If I say yes, are you going to make me get out of the shower?"

Bryce appears out of the steam and sets the crate carrying Chuck's bathroom supplies in it at Chuck's feet. The rest of the house is quiet or maybe it just seems that way because, for some reason, all Chuck can hear is the sudden pounding of his blood in his ears. He's used to Bryce showing up out of nowhere, like Rumpelstiltskin or Mr. Mxyzptlk or The Great Gazoo, and normally it doesn't bother him, because Bryce has this habit of showing up just when Chuck needs something that's a little too close to rescuing. But sometimes, like now, he's not sure what to make of Bryce showing up with his eyes flashing dangerously and something inherently predatory in his stride. "No."

"Going to offer to scrub my back?" He wants to bite his tongue as soon as the words are out of his mouth, but this is another thing Bryce Larkin does to him.

"You have a hard to reach spot, Chuck?" Bryce sets his own kit down next to Chuck's and turns on one of the other showers, dancing back from the cold spray until steam starts to curl around him.

Chuck watches surreptitiously, not actually answering Bryce's question. Grabbing his soap, he forces himself to look away from Bryce and starts lathering up his hands, shocked when he feels soapy fingers start to slide up his back.

"Is it here?" Chuck swallows hard, dropping his own bar of soap in response. Bryce laughs and grasps Chuck's hips, his thumbs rubbing small circles on either side of the small of Chuck's back. "Careful, Chuck. Something like that might be viewed as an invitation."

"Um…in p-prison," Chuck reminds him.

Bryce's hands disappear and Chuck quickly steps under the spray to wash away the soap and the burning impression he's relatively certain has to be seared into his skin given how hot he feels. He finally gathers enough courage to turn his head, and Bryce is gone. His shower's dripping its last dying drops and Chuck's soap is back with the rest of his toiletries.

Turning off his own shower, Chuck grabs the towel Bryce left for him and wraps it around his waist, not at all surprised to see a stack of clean clothes in place of his pile of dirty ones. Heaving a sigh, he dries off and gets dressed, trudging back to his room and his enigmatic roommate, certain that he's never going to understand what makes Bryce Larkin tick.