Fandom: Gossip Girl (show-based)
Genre: Angst/romance
Pairings: Chuck/Serena, Chuck/Blair, slight Nate/Serena
Rating: PG-13
Status: One-shot; complete
Word count: 1,392
Disclaimer: I own nothing, not even the title sad face. It's the name of a song by Explosions in the Sky.
AN: I've loved the idea of a Chuck/Serena pairing ever since the first episode. In fact, I am a die-hard C/S shipper (and the only one out of all my friends sob). Here is my little contribution to the cause. It's majorly angsty because, well, I was alternating between OneRepublic's "Come Home" and Tori Amos' "Northern Lad" and "Hey Jupiter" while writing it (except for the, ehrm, sexy-ish parts, which I would never have gotten through without Serge and Charlotte Gainsbourg's "Lemon Incest" wink wink). I hope I didn't go overboard, but please tell me if I did! I actually haven't gotten any sleep yet because I stayed up all night working on this story before taking care of stuff at school and then chilling with friends at the mall afterwards. And, yes, that was your lame and pointless personal anecdote of the day. Feedback (be it positive or negative) is much appreciated.
Summary: When your walls crumble, you don't always have the strength to rebuild. At least, not immediately.
Remember me as a time of day
by Dasyatis Dance
Sometimes when she laughs, there's a crackle of mischief in her eyes that reminds him of the girl she used to be. He'd liked that girl. Not this one.
This one, with her unlaced iced tea at parties and coming home before midnight, her steady boyfriend in lieu of one-week flings, makes him think of redemption and how he's beyond it.
Not that he cares or anything.
"You said you loved me." Blair's voice and hard gaze are an accusation because she's much too in control to beg.
He shrugs. "I'm Chuck Bass."
It's the only explanation he can give, but the look of contempt that slowly falls across her face tells him she takes it anyway.
"I had hoped, Charles, that--" Bart Bass stops, sighs, wears his years on crow's feet and worry lines.
He asks Eric to pass the butter, even though the silver dish is practically at Chuck's elbow.
Chuck distracts himself from thinking about this by watching the sunlight play on Serena's hair when she moves.
It's Lily who tells them, sitting on the couch with a trembling glass of gin and tonic. Lily, who only ever wanted picture-perfect happiness, but instead got a crowded sidewalk and ambulance siren screams blotting out the sky.
"Chuck?"
"Go. Away."
He doesn't tear his eyes from the ceiling but he senses her hesitation, knows she's standing in the open doorway nervously wringing her hands because unlike Blair, Serena's always been so easy to read.
"Are you--" She's smart enough to stop. He's obviously not all right and it's only going to make things worse if someone asks. "Look, do you need anything? Food, something to drink?"
"Serena, which part of go away do you fail to comprehend?"
He expects her to launch into a self-righteous tirade about how she's only trying to help, but instead there's a soft click as the door shuts and he's alone.
The few lines he's managed to scribble down gleam in black ink on the white expanse of paper.
No one will ever take his place in my life.
He's stuck there, because what that place was, Chuck's never been entirely sure.
When he gets drunk enough on vodka highballs and tequila shots, he barges into her room.
She's standing in front of the dressing table, shrugging a peach silk bathrobe over her nightgown, and she freezes when she sees him. "Chuck, what the hell?"
"Nice to see you too, sis." His words are slurred but he collects himself enough to saunter, hands in pockets, before his body finally gives up and he lands on the floor. The world spins as he pulls himself into a sitting position, leaning against her bed.
"But you're not really my sister anymore, are you? Unfortunately, that means my darkest taboo fantasies have been shattered."
Serena continues to surprise by not throwing him out, by her footsteps padding lightly on the floor as she comes to sit next to him, by the smell of lavender oil on warm skin that in his inebriated state floods him with inexplicable yearning and loneliness.
"Remember in kindergarten when we did macaroni pictures?" Chuck blurts out. "I put mine on his desk. He scolded me for cluttering his workspace." A harsh laugh pushes past the dry knot in his throat. "Bastard."
Serena doesn't say anything, and Chuck finds himself liking that about her, that she doesn't feel the need to fill up silence with empty words.
"The last thing we discussed was my failed relationship with-- her." He can't bring himself to say Blair's name, not now, not like this. "Then you, Eric and I left for school. And when we came home…"
He trails off, turns to Serena, whose soft features and gentle eyes are so different from the mask of tense irritation she usually wears when she's around him. In the dim light Chuck can almost spot what Nate saw, still sees, and he thinks that if he reaches further he'd be able to grasp why Nate's never gotten over her.
"Your father loved you, Chuck," Serena murmurs, placing a hand on his arm. "He may not have been too obvious about it--"
"Yes, he was exceedingly subtle."
The ghost of a smile curves her lips and Chuck almost finds himself mirroring it, before a fresh wave of anguish washes over him and roughens his voice. "But he-- but I-- I didn't…"
"You weren't able to say goodbye," she says in the tone of someone who knows a thing or two about regret.
He grabs a handful of golden hair, lets it curl around his fingers. Their faces are close, so close.
The day should have been cold and overcast to suit the funeral mood, but isn't. Bart Bass is buried in the sunlight, on a hilltop with a view of the city he had loved and conquered.
His heir's eulogy is delivered without a flaw, impeccable, not a single crack or waver or tear. He would have been disappointed otherwise, and his disappointment is (was) harder to deal with than his anger, and Chuck Bass has only ever known both.
"I'm so sorry, Chuck."
He raises his head, wondering if he'd see malicious triumph in her doe-brown eyes, but there is only compassion, and he almost laughs at the fact that it takes something like this to turn the bitch into a human being.
"How have you been holding up?"
"Fine." He clears his throat. "I'll survive. I'm--"
"Chuck Bass," she finishes, and there is bittersweetness in her voice, and he is nearly undone. "Well, take care of yourself."
Whenever Blair turns and leaves, Chuck always feels like she's walking out of his life. This time is no different.
Later that night, he sneaks into his father's office and realizes nothing in the place has ever been changed or moved all these years, that it still looks the same as when he was a kid hopefully putting an ugly macaroni picture on top of contracts and financial statements.
The sound that escapes from his lips could've been either a sob or a sigh. Chuck doesn't know.
He kisses Serena the moment she opens her door. She cries out in surprise but it's muffled under the insistent pressure of his lips, and without missing a beat he pushes her back several steps until they fall on top of the bed.
Soft skin and silky hair and lavender assail his senses as his hands follow the way her body dips and curves, as he learns the shape of her teeth and the velvet slide of her tongue. She'd obviously already been sleeping when he knocked, because the lights in the room are turned off, and in the darkness he can pretend the locks he's running his fingers through are chestnut brown, and he wants to.
But she's kissing him back and he's too weak, he needs this, he needs her, and it's her name his lips whisper against the creamy skin on her neck. "Serena."
It ends with her trying to push him away just as he's slid the straps of her flimsy satin top off her shoulders. Unfazed, his hands return to her waist and his mouth moves to her collarbone.
"Chuck. Chuck." She manages to wriggle free and reach for a nearby switch, flooding the room with the light of a table lamp. "What are you doing?"
He can only stare at her, at what Nate Archibald saw, still sees, speechless because he doesn't know, damn it, he has no clue what the hell he's doing, and it's his father's fault, all those forgotten birthdays and stiff impersonal shoulder pats, and after all that the old man is gone, they'd put him in the ground today, buried by sunlight and blue sky, and Blair had turned and left--
Chuck doesn't realize the wetness staining his cheeks are tears until Serena's shaking fingers catch them. He wants to tell her that it's a fluke, that he never cries, because he's Chuck Bass, but her touch is a comfort, and so he takes her hand and holds on to it for a moment before letting go.
There is, Chuck tells an ocean of black silk and pale faces, a saying: Le Roi est mort. The King is dead.