A/N: Don't ask how I got this out. Inspiration struck, I guess. Tell me what you think
He didn't expect to find her behind the door he's just opened, dressed impeccably as always, tears soaking her skin and makeup smeared down her face.
"Chuck."
Just one syllable, one word, five letters makes him pull her into his suite, into his arms.
She clasps her hands around his neck, her nails dig into his back as she clutches his shoulders but he doesn't care, never cared, so long as she was okay.
Just like that she's in his life again, writhing against him between his Egyptian cotton sheets, where he never thought she'd be again.
"Chuck," she murmurs, over and over, and he wonders how he spent all those months without her warming his bed.
Because they had said they would come back to each other, didn't they? But there was the voice at the back of his head, that ever-present voice-
"She'll find someone better. Someone who doesn't have a thousand fuck-ups and issues and mistakes under his disgustingly ornate belt."
-because when it comes down to it, he is just a boy with nothing and she gave him everything. And he fucked it up. He doesn't deserve her, not that he ever did.
He is dirt on the bottom of her Manolo Blahnik, and she is the light of his life.
He cries out her name when he comes, pulls her close and doesn't dare weaken his grip.
(He was always an insecure basstard when it came to her.)
The sun rises and in the cruel light of day she is gone, with only a faint scent of Coco Mademoiselle in her wake.
His hand throbs as it impacts against his mirror.
So vain. So disgusting.
He sees her at a party, one of these ridiculous farces of gloss and glamour oh darling aren't wee just too fabulous and he sees her excuse herself to the bathroom.
He'd follow her anywhere.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"Saving you." He replies simply, likes the feel of the unfamiliar words around his mouth, the sweetest taste in the world, he's only tasted it a thousand times, probably more, only when he kneels down before his Queen.
"Nobody can see me like this."
He's way ahead of her. "I'm taking you out the back exit."
She's tucked into his bed, their bed, where she should be all the time and don't leave again because I love you and I'm a giant fuck-up but please, pity me.
"Why are you taking care of me? I don't deserve it."
He kisses her head because she's clearly temporarily insane and he doesn't want to patronize her.
"You deserve the universe. But Bass Inc hasn't expanded into Europe yet."
She smiles at him and suddenly everything is gold, because he would die for her smile.
He takes her hand, winds his fingers through hers, thinks about Harry Winston and tall buildings.
"Why does nothing go the way I want it to?" she's crying and he's breaking with her. Stay strong, Bass. "I try so hard."
He kisses her hard because what else can he do, he makes love to her for the rest of the night, kisses every inch of her skin, murmurs IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou into her skin, into her centre, he makes her believe everything he says, makes her believe she's beautiful, she's amazing and that nobody is worthy of even looking at her, not even him but please take pity on a broken boy because you're the only one who's ever been able to put me back together.
He wakes up, terrified of what he won't find but he knows she's there the second he wakes up because her face is buried in his neck and her arms are still wrapped around him as his are around her, and fucking hell this must be heaven.
It was a pretty good way to go.
We break, we shatter and we push everyone who cares away, because love is such a huge weight that it's better to pretend not to care because then nobody can hurt you ever and nobody can leave you and nobody can break your heart. That's just logic.
Total bullshit.
We're human, we breathe and we love, we fuck up, we cry and we're horrible to ourselves.
We just have to pray that there's someone who won't give up on us.
"I love you." He tells her, which makes that the twelfth time today.
She rolls her eyes and he's putty on the floor, beneath her, always beneath her.
"You love me but you haven't even proposed to me yet." And he must have done something right at some point in his life because he's never been happier.
"Patience is a virtue." He says, kisses her, presses against her.
"That's just-oh God."
"It's time to wake up, love."
God help him he will marry her.
And he will die before he lets her go again.
Fin.