PROLOGUE

AN: A splash of pre-series, a dab of Victrola, conceivably some season three…

Title from Shakespeare's Sonnet 144. Thanks go out to bethaboo, my delightful beta.

Blair Waldorf had two loves; one of comfort, the other despair.

The greatest tragedy had always been that she could never succumb to the comfort of one without the infliction of despair from the other.

So it never really should've surprised her when she yielded to the comfort of Chuck Bass in the back of a limo. Moments after she had stepped onto a burlesque stage and given the most risqué performance of her life, no less.

It never should've surprised her that Nate could bring about such despair, from sleeping with her best friend to using her to secure a deal between their parents.

It had always been this way; Nate's unintentional infliction of anguish would eventually lead to Blair seeking consolation in his best friend.

And one night, the tables turned. Inexplicably, Blair found herself in the back of a moving vehicle, succumbing to the devil himself.

And that night, the comfort went too far.

Without any grounding explanation or reasonable rationalization, Blair Waldorf found herself falling for Chuck Bass.

That in itself was dangerous. That much she knew. He was dangerous in the purest sense, a combustible flurry of hidden emotions and lewd remarks. One day, it would destroy them, destroy her.

She didn't care.

And so she loved him as fiercely as she possibly could. It consumed her; it ran through her veins like the purest heroin.

She was absolutely intoxicated by him.

She knew the same feelings rang true for him. Chuck Bass didn't have a way with emotions, but he had a way with actions. And those actions spoke volumes.

Actions that had left her sobbing in a golden dress, tearing the straps off, and partaking in scalding hot showers that burned away the physical reminders of Jack, but could never cleanse her mind of the memories.

The tables turned once more, and Blair fell harder than before, because when you loved one as fiercely as she loved Chuck, they also had the ability to inflict the harshest form of betrayal.

The solace she sought in Nate's arms was never the same as the sympathy she had found in Chuck's.

And that was when she realized, her two loves of comfort and despair had never been as such.

Blair Waldorf had only one love, of both comfort and despair.

tbc