Work Text:
"Hi, I'm Josh Clark and welcome to the podcast. With me, as always, is Charles W. Chuckers, Chuck-D, Woodchuck, the Chuck-Man-Cometh --"
"Thank you," says Chuck. He's grinning at Josh, as always.
"-- Bryant," finishes Josh. "And this is Stuff You Should Know."
Geri is shaking her head at them. Josh can't blame her.
"So Chuck," Josh says, "have you ever heard of a poo-ah?"
Chuck starts to laugh. "I think I've done a ... no, that's too gross to say. What's a poo-ah, Josh?"
"A poo-ah is an acronym. A P-U-A."
"Oh, a pick-up artist. That guy with that stupid show on VH1 --"
"Mystery."
"Lame dude in a hat," Chuck clarifies. "What does he have to do with our topic?"
"Everything, and nothing in that you should not pay attention to him and only to me," Josh says. "Because this is How Pick-Up Artists Work."
Three Days Earlier
Their desks face each other in the bullpen at the office. This was supposedly done to facilitate their working together, but instead it's resulted in the development of a terrible habit: IMing each other on GChat instead of just having conversations like normal people. Josh kind of likes it; it's easier to copy and paste a link to an interesting article than to pop up over his monitor every three minutes to say, "Hey, Chuck, did you see that thing ..." It also keeps people from overhearing their more idiotic tangents.
New podcast assignment, Josh types. Thoughts?
Yeah, I have a thought. Didn't we cover this already? How Flirting Works?
This is different. This is flirting with intent.
I thought flirting was flirting with intent.
I thought your mom was flirting with intent.
HEY OH
HEY OHHHHHH
Josh can hear Chuck snickering. He flicks his eyes up over the monitor and grins at him, then hunches back over the keyboard.
Dude I think we can maybe do some field research on this one.
Chuck coughs. Married, Josh's window flashes.
And I have a girlfriend. Whatever, it's harmless. Let's take them with us. They can try it too.
"This is such a bad idea," Chuck says, leaning around his computer. Josh gives him two thumbs up and types, !!!!!
"It wasn't a bad idea," Josh tells the microphone.
"It was a little bit of a bad idea," Chuck says. "Are you going to share the results of our field research?"
"Do you really want me to tell the boys and girls --"
"Tell the boys and girls what happened."
"I got picked up," Josh sighs.
"Josh got picked up!" Chuck crows. "By a dude!"
"In my defense," Josh says, "it started out as just a really interesting conversation. Also, I thought he was flirting with Yumi, so I was possibly a little more aggressive than usual --"
"I thought you said that you weren't a jealous person," Chuck deadpans. "I mean, I think we have that on record."
"On podcast record. Podcord."
"Don't try to change the topic," Chuck says. "You're telling our listeners a fantastic story."
"It's not a fantastic story because it's doing nothing to advance our topic and explain how this stuff works, because it was not a successful pick-up."
"You read his game."
"Like a book," Josh says. "Which brings us to a term. Game, in pick-up artist language ..."
A perfect segue. Josh glances at Chuck over the microphone, and Chuck rolls his eyes. Oh, Chuckers, Josh thinks.
"All set," Geri says into their headsets. Josh gives her the thumbs up and takes his off.
"Good job," he says to Chuck. "Woo, Friday!"
"Woo," Chuck says, but he looks a little troubled. "Hey, can I -- hang on a minute. Geri," he says into the mic, "can you wait around for a few minutes? I want to check with Josh about something we might need to re-record."
Geri gives them the OK sign through the soundbooth window. Chuck jerks his head at the door and Josh follows him out into the hallway, eyebrows knitted.
"Everything ok?"
"Yeah, buddy, I just --" Chuck sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his feet a little. "You just seemed a little uncomfortable in there."
"In ... in there?" Josh jerks his thumb back at the studio. "Uh, it was a little chilly ..."
"No, I meant." Chuck rubs the back of his neck and shrugs. He's not meeting Josh's eyes. Josh wonders if maybe he'd prefer to have this conversation over GChat. "When I brought up what happened when we went out."
"What? The, the getting hit on?" Josh starts to grin. "You thought I was weirded out?"
"You changed the topic pretty fast --" Chuck shrugs again and looks up at Josh. "I, seriously man, I wasn't saying you should tell the story because I was trying to embarrass you or anything."
"I know you weren't," Josh says. "Why would I be embarrassed? It was funny. Kind of nice. I still got it." He flexes his bicep at Chuck, who cracks up.
"Okay. Okay, good. So, you're fine with it --"
"Seriously, dude, it's nothing I haven't done before. It can stay in the podcast."
Chuck's head jerks back the tiniest increment and Josh is satisfied to see the flash of recognition in his eyes. "Oh-okay, great." He grins at Josh, who slaps him on the shoulder. Good. This should be that easy. "I'll go tell Geri we're all set then."
"All set."
Chuck turns to head back to the studio and Josh walks back out to the office, and his desk, where he opens up the GChat window with Chuck.
I read your game like a book, he types, and hits send.