Press Forward and Replay.
Author: Sky Samuelle
Summary: Future Fic. Georgina, Chuck &Blair: the unrepentant evolution of a passionately dysfunctional triangle as years go by.
Words: 2980
Ship: major CB, minor CG
Rating: MATURE
PROLOGUE
Some relationships are too dysfunctional to follow a linear sequence in either time or space: they move in cycles, ever perpetuating old constants around new focal points, reaching new heights at each turn of their spiral even while dragging painful remnants of past. Eventually one pattern falls apart and everything begins again right where it had originated.
It's the nature of love: whether it is healthy or unhealthy, it connects people too deeply to not influence their evolution, and even when the aforementioned ones are too messed up to make it work.
Love is not pure or simple, because people are neither.
Our story begins with two angry rich kids and it grows to include three.
Because Chuck Bass didn't always hate Georgina Sparks and they weren't always part of a close-knit group of six… before C and G, King and Queen of mayhem, there were Charlie and Georgie: the little boy who grew up to believe he had killed his mother and the girl whose mother wouldn't believe her proper husband occasionally raped their liar of a little girl under their roof.
There was a time when those two kids were too undisciplined, too jaded, too angry to really fit in with others of their age. Oh, there was always a wild, almost animalistic magnetism to them and they were rarely alone. It didn' t matter that Georgie was moody and Charlie came from new money.
There was also a time when Chuck Bass used to look at Georgina and think of her as beautiful, a different brand of beauty than any other UES girl he knew.
Serena's beauty was like sunshine, light and warm but unsubstantial. It would occasionally blind him, overwhelm his sight for few seconds, but it always grazed fleetingly, never really leaving a mark.
Blair was snow, immaculate and glowing, but cold… so cold than it would give your fingers frostbite if you forgot your gloves.
Georgina was like glass – with her owlishly large, thick lashed blue eyes, her small nose and that pale angel-like face. She looked so deceptively transparent than you would miss the fine cracks on its shiny surface if your gaze wasn't keen and attentive.
Glass appeared indestructible but it broke easily in your hands and when it did, your flesh bled and scarred, but the pain was too real to not be welcome.
It was inevitable that eventually Chuck and Georgina came to exchange scars as Charlie and Georgie traded secrets.
--
"Where's your pot hiding?"
"I have a better idea to improve your day. "
"Like what?"
"My parents aren't home. Let's have sex."
Eleven years-old Chuck Bass' abruptly stopped rummaging among the drawers of the Sparks' deserted kitchen and turned to stare at the girl behind him. His expression twisted briefly in an oddly unbalanced mix of shock and distaste, and then cleared out to reflect only a stubborn indifference.
"No"
"No? Why not?" Georgina was absolutely incredulous before Chuck's firm and immediate rejection.
His voice rose almost in question: "Because I'm not in the mood? "
He felt terribly stupid the moment the words drawled out of his mouth. It wasn't such a big deal, anyway, and he didn't like how hard Georgina was glaring at him.
"Oh, shit." He huffed, trying to come across as anything but annoyed. "You win! Let's do it. "
"So undress already?" Georgina hissed right back, crossing her arms in front her chest. It was unsettling that Chuck was not giving in enthusiastically to her initiatives… this was the way it was between them. Unlike that Serena girl, who liked being cajoled and coddled in following Georgina or Chucks 's lead, he usually embraced her most daring ideas with the same gusto she reserved for his.
"I won't deflower you in a kitchen, it's proletarian!"
He wasn't too sure of what 'proletarian' meant , but he had heard his mother use that word in reference to his father's origins once, and it had sounded quite offensive.
Georgina rolled her eyes with an overdramatic sigh and took his hand to lead her guest upstairs, toward her bedroom.
She kissed him on the threshold, before he could bother closing the door behind them. She kept it up he was getting into it, until she could push him gracelessly on her bed.
His nose nuzzled the curve of her neck and Chuck felt a new kind warmth flowing underneath his skin, a new tightness in his belly that started as her dainty hands slid along his sides and skimmed under his shirt.
He felt a little detached from the situation as she touched him lower.
It wasn't that it was a novelty for him…something similar had already happened with his British thirty-something nanny last year. He had a suspicion that it was the reason his mother had fired her so fast and so brusquely. He hadn't spoken a word of it to anybody. He didn't know how he felt about it. Being manhandled wasn't as pleasant as the general talk made it out to be, and he hadn't liked how out of his element Patty's hands on him used to make him feel, like if that woman was taking possession of something of his.
Yet, boys were supposed to enjoy that kind of attention from beautiful females and Patty was pretty, old or not. Perhaps it will feel different with someone of his age.
"Will you do something too, or is it all on me?" Georgina muttered unkindly in his ear after nibbling on his naked shoulder, her fingernails scratching his chest. He answered her by suddenly rolling them over and pinning her underneath him. He smirked against her collarbone only to prove to her and himself he was perfectly capable to handle himself.
Ten years after Chuck Bass was experiencing actual, unmistakable, inescapable emotional degradation.
Ugh. How low the mighty have fallen.
The mere thought was enough to convince him to pour himself another glass of scotch. It burned his throat nicely, but the familiar taste sickened him. Why was it that every time he felt shitty, he drank that? He was beginning to associate the very smell of it with the very concept of misery, and it pissed him even more, because it was turning him off from drinking, and drinking himself to stupor was the only way he knew to stop berating himself for his stupidity.
Emotional degradation? Him? He had spent years guarding himself from this peculiar humiliation. Setting himself securely above it, to be as different as it was possible from his parents.
But all his experience and life philosophy meant nothing when it came to Blair Waldrof. It seemed he never learnt his lesson where that rabid bitch was concerned.
He had insinuated himself in her life knowing perfectly well what he was against: that his beautiful ice princess lived in an endless cycle of being with Nathaniel and not being with Nathaniel. Everything else was a diversion. She had used him that way once before, so long ago, and then brushed him gracelessly aside when the chance presented itself to have the love of her life back.
He should have known better than setting aside his pride and fighting his nature to enjoy a last chance with her.
He should have known better than trusting the appearances, believing she was over her silly fairy tales and actually happy on Chuck Bass' arm.
But what a wonderful actress she had been, with the glow of her lazy bedroom smiles and the unspoken promises in her eyes!
Maybe this time, Blair had wanted so much to be over Nate that she had managed to fool herself. Yet, no amount of pretending and wanting could erase the rampant jealousy that was revealed by the unexpected revelation of a Serena and Nate' s romantic reconnection.
Chuck should have found comfort in the notion that, at least, Nate would have never returned Blair's obsessive longing. He was already vindicated because Nate was so in love with Serena that Blair didn't stand a chance. She would suffer the same pain Chuck was forced to endure, with the same frustration Chuck was forced to digest.
But there was no consolation to be discovered in that truth, only a vague relief that he wouldn't need to retaliate.
It was such a waste of good intentions, really.
He laughed at himself while he remembered the ridiculous speech he had improvised at his father's wedding, playing his last hand to win her with a grand- if grossly uninspired and awkward feeling –gesture.
Romanticism was indeed overrated. Even now, he couldn't make a sense of it, but he had tried and strived to please her and in the end, his big gamble had publicly blew up in his face.
Maybe if so many people hadn't been there to witness his moral defeat, he would have kept Blair.
It wasn't like he put much stock in that True Love shit any way. That was Queen B' field of experience.
Chuck Bass preferred the tangible, and maybe he wouldn't care too much to know that his girlfriend still secretly carried a torch for his best friend. Chuck Bass knew better, he knew Blair and Nate couldn't work in reality, regardless of either's idealistic expectations.
But what did it matter if he knew Blair truly belonged with him, when all of Upper East Side knew, beyond doubt, that Blair was still firmly convinced of the opposite?
There was no way Chuck could withstand becoming a laughing stock for their so called friends, never mind his father.
Even Blair Waldorf wasn't worth his dignity.
It was sort of pathetic. He was celebrating that realization in the same place where this mess had started: Victrola.
His gaze grew unfocused as he tried, and failed, to lose himself in the haze, the blending of prosperous bodies, the sensually swaying and artificial shadows, decadent music angrily beating on his sore nerves.
Chuck closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, unwilling to mull again over how humiliating his position was. When he opened them gain, he was only half-surprised to spot a familiar figure among the crowd.
She had kept her hair waist-length as years passed her by, probably because she knew it made her to look older and more sophisticated. There was an exquisite irony in it. Her face insisted on retaining and showcasing the childlike innocence that she was been so determined to lose far too early and too roughly.
She had hated with a rare passion the guileless, cherubic softness of her features: she had taken to dissimulate it with scary tones of eyeliner and lipstick as soon puberty hit.
Maybe she still felt the same way because as she slowly cut her path through the colourful masses of costumers and dancers, holding proudly his gaze, he could notice her wide blue eyes were still framed by a thick over-abundant eyeliner and her full, smirking mouth coated with a dark red lipstick.
Her skimpy, black Chanel dress revealed that she was no longer as thin and bony as a steeotypical crack whore, but it at the same time, Chuck was reassured that Georgina Sparks hadn't given up attiring herself as one.
Obviously caring little for formal invitation, Georgina didn't hesitate to sit across from him and sport a unrepentantly, transparently mocking pout.
"Heartbreak doesn't become you, Chuckles. You will need to wipe that murderous expression from your face if you want one of your entertainers … entertain you."
Strangely, even though she was tossing his face old childhood pet-names in his face, playing them with sugary gayety, her game still wasn't feeding his desire to strangle her.
Possibly because he expected worse from her.
Possibly because, even if they weren't friends, this nasty, cocky slut had managed to be there to provide a saucy commentary of his most important firsts.
She was been his first kiss and his first sex, his first companion to sniff gum, his first –and thankfully only - witness to finding his mother, so drugged up on antidepressants and alcohol, had crashed through the glass window of their balcony to the street below. She was the first to hear a drunken proposition of ' let's try out exclusivity and see how soon we get bored', only to laugh raucously in his face.
It was almost fitting that she was here now: nobody else rubbed salt in his fresh wounds better.
On the table separating them, his cell vibrated, Nate' s name glowing unabashedly on the display.
"Was London so boring that you had to bless me with your presence so soon?"
Since Georgina was an habitué of Victrola's and Chuck didn't despise her enough to refuse hosting a few of her wild parties, it was unavoidable and moderately comforting that he had a small measure of clearance to her movements.
"Apparently I haven't lost my infamous instinct to smell scandals. I'm only sorry I missed the Wild Brunch in person."
"Such a pity. I admit I found the spectacle morbidly refreshing myself."
It's usually easier acting out his part of unfeeling, experienced player if he is around his species. It forces him to put in real attempt, until he can almost delude himself into buying his façade.
Chuck was faintly smiling now, a sliver of bitterness in his words and a crisp of malice on his lips.
He commanded himself to not grab Georgina's hand as it sneaked out to grasp his still vibrating cell.
Fuck Nate. Blond or not; it wasn't that difficult understanding he was last person whose rambling Chuck wanted or needed to listen right now.
It half-tranquilized him, half-disappointed him that all that Georgie did was turning the interfering object off.
Their conversation ended there.
She purposefully slid beside him, tossing her long chestnut hair back to expose her pale neck. He responded the dare in her eyes by surrounding her waist with his arm and pulling her roughly closer, easily falling flush against his chest.
Moving agilely over him, Georgina straddled him and arched her back to bring her breasts invitingly close to his face.
He didn't bother questioning why she was offering herself to him so eagerly, without insisting on the antagonistic foreplay they had once so viciously thrived on, that had been essential in their long time past run-ins.
Whether it was lust or revenge motivating her, it no longer made a difference.
Blair's feelings were no longer a concern of his and it was insane this left him feeling bereft, stupidly deprived of something which was never properly his to begin.
Blair's demands weren't his debt anymore, and it was strange suddenly realizing that he was so separated, so drastically and permanently distanced from someone so deeply ingrained in his daily routine.
Georgina's nails dug painfully in his nape, bringing his mental processes to a brusque halt.
This was exactly what he needed: absorbing himself in a physicality too blunt to ignore, forgetting Blair's betrayal in something more fierce than alcohol-induced numbness.
Somehow, he forced last two years to slowly fade from his memory.
If only for a moment, he wished and managed to erase them from existence.
He brought himself far, far back and when he blinked again, sighing against Georgina's soft throat, he had persuaded himself he was still fourteen and a unremorseful playboy, Blair Waldrof nothing more than Nate Archibald' private territory.
And Miss Sparks… wasn't Whorgina just yet but a mysterious, tempting 'maybe', because this was before she slipped him a roofie -at that stupid, stupid party- for her perverse amusement. This was before she set Chuck Bass up for the single most embarrassing moment of his life: the morning after when he was been horrified to awake to discover himself squeezed in between Georgina and Carter Baizen.
No need to say, it was that morning Chuck's positive sentiments towards his previous mentor and his childhood playmate had evaporated into a silently, dignifiedly simmering resentment.
They held onto each other tightly, as she rode him hard and fast, as his mouth latched desperately on the half-forgotten sensitive spot on the back of her neck. Her crawls dug in his side and into his shoulderblade.
Orgasm came over them violently, carelessly, quickly.
They untangled moments after it, and exchanged barely a glance before she turned her back on him and left.
Chuck didn't see Georgina again until 3 months after.
It was the Rio's carnival, and he woke the morning after to find himself naked, hung-over and still buried inside her. She was passed out on top of him. Apparently, they had screwed each other into exhaustion.
He smirked, in spite of the killer headache and the horrid taste on his tongue, because he could dazedly remember glimpses of their last conversation from the previous night.
She had made some sort of pass to him, or maybe insinuated that he wanted her. He had laughed it off.
"I wouldn't bother. You are that drunk than you wouldn't last 5 minutes before passing out on me"
"Bass, if we were fucking, I wouldn't be the one to pass out". – for a moment there was been something almost endearing in the steel of her ice blue gaze while she leaned in , but the deliberate viciousness of what she said next ruined it– "or maybe Queen B has so neutered you than you don't rem-"
That hit too close home, and the only way he could erase the score before she realized she was winning was to shut her up once for all.
In a single movement, he closed the distance between them, engaging her lips in a maliciously fervent, voracious kiss, the likes of which they hadn't shared in years