Chuck Bass ran a critical eye over his reflection, beginning at the tips of his perfectly polished shoes and trailing upwards to his freshly shaven jaw. Perfection… almost. A deep frown suddenly cut through his features causing his dark eyebrows to hover low over his equally dark eyes. His bowtie was crooked. Before he could reach up and straighten the offending bowtie, slender and elegant arms reached around him, grasping the edges of his bowtie and gently pulling it back into order. Chuck didn't turn around. Instead, he watched her reflection in the mirror, catching sight of the same dark hair, sharply angled cheek bones, and piercing brown eyes he'd just seem in his own face moments ago. An unfamiliar but pleasant warmth washed over him at the sight of his mother. Her graceful fingers curled around his shoulder, squeezing him affectionately. Even through the reflection in the mirror Chuck could feel the warmth and pride beaming from her gaze. And, in that moment, he knew she would have changed his life.
His mother. Chuck had ached to know her as a child, beyond the few scripted responses he could badger out of Bart. And so in the long and lonely hours he spent alone while Bart was at work, Chuck would sneak into Bart's closet, using a chair to leverage his short arms through the dusty boxes to grab the well-worn picture album that he knew was hidden there. He would spend hours devouring the pages with greedy eyes, imprinting the details of her into his eager brain. He could see his own features rearranged on his mother's slender, more feminine face. He knew she preferred red wine and that she was left handed. Though he'd never seen her move, he could tell she was elegant and graceful from her stance alone. And though muted by the camera lens, Chuck could easily see the warmth of her smile. But he could never know the warmth of her touch. And it broke his heart all over again.
It took him years to accept the cold, hard truth of the matter: no amount of pictures would ever replace the gaping hole this woman created in his life. "Fuck you," he had screamed into the silence of the penthouse. "Fuck you," he repeated louder, ripping a handful of pages from the album before slinging them against the wall. "Fuck you for never being there," he roared as more and more pages went ripping from the album and scattered around the room. "Fuck you," his voice strained, becoming raw from forceful screams that echoed from his lungs. As his fingers gripped the last few remaining pages of the album, Chuck caught sight of himself in the mirror. His face was flushed red and he was breathing hard, drawing in deep, gasping breaths. The carefully controlled Chuck Bass had lost all semblance of control in those few moments, blinded by fear and fueled by anger. But it was the expression on his face that halted his destruction, the album pages slipping lifelessly from his fingers before clattering to the floor. Behind the splotchy redness of his face was an expression that could only be described as pure hate. Evil, if such a thing actually existed. A monster. Was this what his father saw buried deep beneath Chuck's slow and lazy drawl and mischievous smile? Was this the reason Bart could barely even look at him?
Afterwards Chuck had felt a flood of remorse for his actions. He gathered up the pages of the album with careful fingers. It took him hours to repair the damage. Sitting on the floor of the closet, he spent painstaking hours wiping away smudges and arranging the pictures against fresh sheets until they were perfect again. His apology was in the tenderness of his actions, the delicate way he handed the pictures. I'm sorry, he said with his touch. It wasn't her fault. How was she to know that she could have been his savior?
She would have taught him to smile more often. Not smirks, sneers or lecherous and amused stares. But real smiles that would have gone straight to his eyes and captured his entire face. She would have made sure that he had plenty to smile about, never resting until her love for him for unquestionable, all encompassing, and ever present.
She wouldn't have allowed Bart to abandon him, throwing him away to the help while he was away on business. She would have stayed with him, keeping him company. They would have spent long nights together, with greasy fingers and buttery popcorn, watching scary movies. She would have hugged him just as tight at seventeen as she did when he was seven. And he would have pretended to be annoyed despite secretly basking in the attention.
He would've never had to earn her pride. She would have been proud of him simply because he was her son, regardless of the grades he brought home or what interested him. But, at the same time, she would never have let him settle for anything less than his best effort.
She would have loved him how his father couldn't: fiercely, freely, and forever. And, in turn, she would have taught him not to be afraid of love. She would have taught him to love deeply and recklessly. He never would have felt the need to run away from love in favor of lust. He wouldn't have felt the need to strip away all emotion from sex, until it was little more than another transaction on his father's credit card.
But she was dead. And he would never know any of these things.
Chuck blinked into the mirror, the smiling image of his mother gone. Pride, warmth, love, all gone, swirling down the drain. He sighed and reached upward to straighten his bowtie himself. This was how things were in his life. This was all he knew. Chuck had everything, yet he had absolutely nothing. Nothing that mattered. His father was generous with everything but his time, love, and approval. He would be raised by an awkward, cold, and calculating man with pale blue eyes that reeked of hypocrisy. This man would demand that love, respect, and pride all be earned. This man would hide behind a cool and unflappable exterior of granite and teach his son to do the same. This man would teach him to be self-sufficient and rely on no one. Only the weak needed someone. Only the weak listened to their heart instead of their brain. And then he would turn Chuck's world upside down by going back on it all, marrying Lily van der Woodsen and forcing them into close quarters in attempts to shove them into the mold of a perfect family. And just when Chuck was starting to find comfort in the idea of family, enjoying taunting Serena and teaching young Eric his trade secrets, the old bastard got himself killed. Out of spite, no doubt. A final punishment to Chuck for being stupid enough to find comfort in the idea of having what everyone else did, a family.
Bart would leave Chuck with a mountain of cash but no clue about anything that money couldn't buy. Chuck would drink until his gaze faded to black and he would inject, snort, and inhale anything that promised to make him forget, if only for a few hours, that he was completely and utterly alone. He would continue to push away anyone who was unfortunate enough to think they gave a damn about him. Chuck would continue to see himself through his father's hard eyes, worthless and unwanted. Insecurities cloaked heavily behind a cool façade of a lecherous smile, sarcasm, and a lazy, drawling tone. He would choke on words of love. He would avoid love and emotion in favor of pricey prostitutes and drunken schoolgirls. He would continue to fuck up everything he touched, until his entire world seemed like it was broken beyond repair. And then he would dull the world with a glass of scotch and a freshly rolled joint.
Unwanted. Unloved. And now alone.
It was exactly as his father would have wanted.