A/N: This was bugging me... and will most likely end up a two-shot. I can't seem to get the second half to work, so I thought posting this and getting feedback would help. I'm W A R N I N G you now... this was inspired by spoilers. Not particularly spoilery if you know a few details, but if you don't, PRESS THE BACK BUTTON NOW. I'm not kidding. Not trying to be mean, but I don't want to hear how you didn't know that this included spoilers.

SERIOUSLY... SEASON TWO SPOILERS ARE AHEAD.

This is mostly conjecture and my plotbunny, but I wanted to tell you what exactly is a spoiler for the show before continuing.

SPOILERS THAT ARE INCLUDED:
- The first few episodes of the season take place in the Hamptons.
- Blair is being wooed by another guy.
- I basically got inspired by this from seeing a picture of Blair being kissed on the cheek.
- Blair does have blond highlights and was wearing ballet flats in the picture I saw.

Now, without further ado...

Knowing What You Need

(Part 1)

It's a beautiful afternoon in South Hampton; the sky is blue, the birds are singing, and the atmosphere inside the Bass family's summer house is so stifling that Chuck decided to actually go out and attempt to enjoy the fresh air. He didn't normally walk, but he'd found he could enjoy it on occasion if for nothing else than the solitude it offered for the thoughts in his head.

Having Blair staying in a room that was only a few doors down from his was really messing with his head. Sure, she avoided him like the plague, but he still knew she was there. He didn't have to actually see her in order to fantasize about running into her or going to her room and fixing this rift between them once and for all.

If only that was an option he could choose; there was that obstacle, one that couldn't be wished away, in the form of Blair's new boyfriend.

His walk was obviously doing nothing to clear his head.

Turning from one quaint little street lined with shops and onto another, he saw something that made him stop short against the corner of a building. Across the street was the subject of his thoughts and his reason for unrest; it seems he just wasn't meant to escape her today.

Blair looked amazing as usual; from the tip of her designer ballet flats to the top of her hair, kissed with blonde highlights from the summer sun, she radiated beauty. Normally the sight of her would cause the undead flutters in his stomach to rise and dance, but today was different.

Standing next to Blair was her newest leading man, the life-size Ken Doll that had taken Chuck's place as a more proper match to her Hepburn-esque aspirations. Chuck had only met him once, but the guy oozed manners and propriety, parents loved him, and, right now, Blair was looking at him like he'd hung the moon.

Chuck watched in frozen horror as Blair's cheek was chastely kissed by her beau. When she giggled in response to the gesture, the butterflies that she'd told Chuck to murder months ago began to die one by one in the agony that he knew he deserved to feel. He'd done this, given up on the right to hold her and the chance to have her smile up at him like that. It was his fault that she'd gone looking for a substitution that matched her fairytale better than he ever did.

It didn't mean that it hurt any less to watch the pages turn and the story unfold.

He stood there, torturing himself, as the tall man his Blair now smiled up at pressed another kiss to her cheek and walked into the store behind where she stood. The relief washing over her face at his departure caused a masochistic curiosity to rise in Chuck's chest at her odd reaction. Was she not as happy as she seemed?

As she pulled out a mirror to check her already perfect make-up, he moved before he could even make a decision to act. Suddenly, he was walking unnoticed down the street, past where she stood and doubling back. Grabbing her gently, he pushed her body against the wall just out of view of the shop windows, pinning her there.

Wide brown eyes filled with anger as they met his own and she attempted to shove him away while she spat, "What the hell do you think you're doing, Bass?!"

"I was about to ask you the same thing." He spoke softly in response, trying to calm her before he started in on her. "You're making a fool out of yourself, Blair. If you thought that you could make me believe you want to be with him, then you're insulting my intelligence. He obviously bores you."

Sighing in frustration, Blair held his gaze, "Running out of material, Chuck? 'That broken record was a hit last year,' and the only fool around here is you." She began to struggle in his arms again, "He'll be back in a minute, so you might want to let me go."

Instead of doing what she asked, he pressed into her further, his body against hers from hips to chest. "You used to beg me to touch you," he whispered throatily, his voice lowered for only her ears to hear, "Remember?"

The unconscious action of her tongue darting out to lick her lips answered his question for him, but her voice was strong when she replied, "That was before you ruined everything, remember? You threw me away when I gave you a chance." Quieting her tone, her eyes looked out past his shoulder before she asked, "Did you really expect me not to move on, Chuck?"

"That's not moving on, Blair, that's regressing." Her eyes snapped back to his, but he could tell she wanted to look anywhere else. "You went back to what used to be safe, to someone that you had no chance of being hurt by because you don't care. Not only that, but I would bet everything I own against his ability to turn you on and make you sweat at the thought of his hands on you. Prim and proper never could drive you wild, Waldorf, and it never will, so why bother wasting your time on someone who'll never be what you need?"

Blair rolled her eyes, "Since when are you an expert on what I need outside of the bedroom, Chuck? You have no idea what you want, so don't even pretend to know me." She sighed with defeat and turned her eyes to the ground, "It's impossible to know what you never took the time to learn."

"I do know you, Blair," he ran his hands up her arms and shoulders before cupping the sides of her face. "I know that your heart is racing right now; that way you're biting your lip means you're trying to get it under control. You're so hot and bothered that I could take you up against this wall in broad daylight and you'd barely protest."

Placing his thumbs over her lips when she tried to speak, he continued, "For years you've lived on autopilot, doing only what was necessary to please everyone but yourself. You're insecure and delicate; your bitchiness is a cover for your desperation to stay on your figurative throne, one that I've helped you keep. You need me, whether or not you know it; you need to flaunt him in front of my face, to know that seeing you with him kills me."

He took a deep breath, knowing what he was going to do couldn't be taken back. "But if I know anything about you, it's that you're in desperate need… of this."

Leaning down the few centimeters between them, he removed his thumbs from her mouth and replaced them with his lips. Her lack of resistance surprised him, filling him with exhilaration. Kissing her like a man that had been wandering the desert for weeks without water, he lapped at her tongue, drinking in the taste of her answering moans, and simply savored the sensation of having her all around him again.

After kissing her for as long as he dared, he pulled away and let his breath fall on her neck. "Let me know when you figure out what you want," he whispered, "I think you know where I stand."

He walked away, leaving her there against the wall, and hid behind the corner he'd spotted her from earlier. Stopping for a moment to take her appearance in, he decided that his work was done here. From her slightly smudged lipstick to her mussed hair to her glazed eyes, she looked thoroughly kissed and confused.

Reaching up to wipe the color her lips had undoubtedly left on his own, he took a second to remember the feeling and another to wish he'd done that differently. He'd given too much away, said too many words, shown too much of his heart in trying to introduce her to hers, but there was no going back now.

After avoiding her since she'd arrived, he'd finally said his piece… and it brought him no comfort.

He was vulnerable; open and exposed to her claws for punishment. Now all he needed to do was wait to see what brand of consequences was coming to him.

It was three in the morning when Chuck's phone rang, waking him out of a dead sleep. He didn't even check the I.D. before answering with an incoherent, "Uh?"

"Where the hell do you get off?!" Blair's voice was loud and angry on the other end of the line, startling him out of his fog.

Shaking his sleep-addled head against the pillow, he cleared his throat, "I don't know if you're aware of the time, but you're going to have to give me a little more information if you expect an answer, Blair."

"Ugh!" She was actually grunting in frustration at him, "You know very well what I'm talking about. I'm doing fine… moving on, forgetting about you and all the crap you've pulled… and then you have to stick your nose where it doesn't belong. I'm tired of it, Chuck. I really am. I want you to leave me alone."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you just call me?" Rubbing his hand over his face he continued, "It seems as if you haven't moved on as far as you'd like to think. Calling an ex in the middle of the night and waking them from a dead sleep just to yell at them doesn't exactly scream 'over you,' does it?" Neither does the fact that she'd obviously been stewing over his actions all day, but he wasn't going to press his luck by mentioning that.

"You make me sick, Chuck. I've never…" Suddenly her voice went dead quiet and all he could hear was her breathing until she spoke up again, "Wait. You're in bed?"

Sighing, he spoke slowly, "Yes… that's where I sleep. In… my… bed."

"Don't patronize me."

"Well, it was kind of a dumb question, Blair," he replied.

"It's a Saturday night. Do you seriously expect me to believe that you were asleep?"

"I don't see why that's so unbelievable," he was running his hand through his hair, trying to think of a reason why she was questioning something so trivial. "Again, did you look at the time before you called?"

She sounded a little calmer when she replied, "Usually you're out collecting skanks to get diseases from at this time of night." Oh, and was that jealousy? Looks he wasn't the only one with that particular affliction.

Letting out a yawn, he concluded, "Seems like you're the one who doesn't know me anymore, Blair."

Pressing the 'End' button on his phone, he rolled to his back and stared up at where the ceiling would be if it wasn't so dark. Blair's audacity wasn't soothing and her curiosity definitely didn't make him feel any better. Is that what she really thought of him? That it was so easy for him to ignore her and go on sleeping around like she wasn't here?

How was he supposed to get back to sleep now, with her voice invading his brain? Knowing that she was awake and thinking of him, even if it was in anger, was turning him on.

Dammit.

A/N: Everything besides the spoilers listed at the top is my idea. For example, I don't know that Blair is staying with the Basses. I also don't know if Chuck witnesses the cheek kiss. This is my first time writing with spoilers, so let me know what you think.