He's buzzed from eggnog, but there's something else in his head rattling around. Not an Intersect memory, no, this is one of his.

A car. A toy car. Battered, dented, scarred from the endless miles of plastic track it's raced down, propelled by nothing more than his eager hand and a lot of imagination, and the many, many crashes.

He'd taken care of most of his toys, but the cars? Man, they were meant to burn, baby, burn.

He finds it in a box in a closet, and wraps it. Kinda. And then he knocks at Casey's door, pushes it into his hand, avoiding the gun, and backs away, smiling nervously.

"Best I can do."

The wrapping falls open like a chocolate orange on a commercial when Casey looks at it, and the Crown Victoria, a paintbrush, and a small bottle of metallic black are revealed in all their inadequacy.

Chuck's reminded of the first time he dropped his pants in company and got snickered at.

He swallows, sketches a wave, and begins to back away, one step, two, maybe he can run backward really fast….

Casey's finger strokes the top of the car gently, the way his hand had caressed the real car, his true love, his baby. It's… unexpected. Chuck braces for the grunt, the put down, the sneer, and gets a bemused smile and a nod.

A moment later, the door closes with a slam, but that's fine, that's good, that's normal.

He walks away feeling pleased. That went well and they can start the new year back as, well, not enemies. Because, honestly, when his car blew up? Casey had given him this look like he wanted to kill him or something…


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