Like a Bass out of Water

A/N: Watched 2x14. Aw'flly morbid, guv'nor. Seriously, Blair is not Chuck's mommy!

But regardless, it was meaningful, love how Blair held out her hand and Chuck took it. She is now officially Chuck's backbone. It's too bad we won't be seeing more hilarious C/B sexual tension, but w/e. Their relationship is more mature than that now. And we like it that way. Or do we….?

And so, vague fourteen-year-old trivialities aside, I wait greedily for the next episode. And the next, and the next…. To quote Patrick Star, "Keep 'em comin', Grandma!"

Okay, so this is AU, duh. After 2x14, Chuck continues to corrode himself, evading the clutches of Jack Bass and coming back to the city. Blair sees him in Victrola, yet again. You'll see, it'll all be obvious once you READ IT. : D

Stupidly tail-noting again, Blair's hair setup in the whole 'waking up' thing is supposed to be kind of like the last few minutes of Star Wars III, when you see the dead Padme. Natalie, you will be missed. Especially by Hayden. : D

Was in a very goth mood when I wrote this, I was listening to 'Apologize' by One Republic (the version minus the screeching of Timbaland, thank you very much), and I was all bummed out about Chuck and Blair, which is my perfect mood when I am going to write about them. Gets me in the zone to write.

Disclaimer: I only own the writing. : D

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blair took a deep breath and opened the door. The intense heat of the club and the flashing lights hit her in waves of sound and color and discomfort. Still, she pulled herself through the vestibule and into the club.

She pushed past people, crowds of people, seas of people, and she did not care about them, they could all burn, except for one of them. She stopped in front of a coarse woman behind the bar counter.

"Can I help you?" She looked Blair over with a critical, scornful eye.

"Have you seen Chuck Bass?"

"Chuck Bass? The Waspoid who owns the place?" the woman said disgustedly.

Irritated, Blair reached into her purse and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill.

The woman tilted her head with surprising delicacy to a far corner of the club, where Blair could just make out his silhouette, and the collective silhouettes of a few women in tow. "Been there for a couple of hours. Had a few drinks."

"Just how much is a 'few'?"

The woman raised a too-plucked eyebrow, strangely graceful in her fat, coarse face. No, she wasn't a whore, but there was something shadowy about her just the same, the look of a hardened survivor with little morals and even less free time.

Blair pulled out another hundred-dollar bill.

"He's had 'bout four drinks, I should think."

"You think?"

"Can't say for sure." She turned around to polish the glasses yet again.

Blair threaded her way to Chuck's corner. There were, of course, multiple women scattered around him, one on his lap, one guarding his shoulder, one smoking a cigarette at his feet. At Blair's painful, poisonous glare, they walked off offended, all except the one on his lap.

"Do I have to hurt you or are you going to go?"

She left.

"Are you drinking again?"

"My liquor is my liquor. Like I said the night previously, I own the place."

"Well, then. Drink up." She grabbed the bottle from Chuck's hand and held it in front of his face.

Chuck stared wordlessly.

"That's all you've ever wanted, isn't it."

He could not meet those black eyes.

"Isn't it."

He turned his head to the side.

"ISN'T IT!"

Her palm made rough contact with his chin. "Look at me."

She tilted his chin and he would still not look her in the face.

She let the bottle drop on the ground. It splintered.

"LOOK. AT. ME." She slapped his cheek with her free hand.

He looked at her. Her angry voice did not match the terrible sadness of her eyes. They were sadder than he had ever seen them.

But he just leered at her. "Go to precious Nathaniel, you held him dear once, why not now? Or to your Colony Club."

"How do you know about the Colony Club?" Abruptly, she dropped her hand from his chin.

"Oh, everyone knows about you and the Colony Club." Chuck gestured futilely with his fingers. "Old news, now. Really, you should keep these things a secret--"

"I left them for you!"

"Well, then. There's still time to salvage it, isn't there?"

"What do you mean?"

"They take applications from very few people. And they wouldn't want you to undermine their reputation. Publicly apologize. Tell them you were inebriated, or perhaps 'not out of your right mind'. Isn't that the damnedest phrase? Ever since you said it to Headmistress Quiller, it's been stuck in my not-so-right mind. I'm 'out of my right mind', and so I'm not responsible for any of my actions."

"Why didn't you accept her offer? It was very generous. You smoking hash on school grounds--"

"But don't you understand, she took pity on me. She took pity on the poor Charles Bass, the poor Charles Bass who just lost his daddy, the poor Charles Bass who has to revert to smoking hash because of his pitiable situation."

Blair laughed once, bitterly, thinly, and it was more like a gasp of pain tearing from her lungs than a laugh. "You don't have any pride. If you did, you would neat up your appearance. And come back to school, at least for the rest of the semester. And then become a successful businessman, if not go to college."

"That's self-pride. What I meant, about the Headmistress--"

"That's self-pride too, you selfish…." She was about to say monster, before she realized that that was exactly what he wanted her to say. It would help him hurt himself. "Chuck, please try." She took his hands in hers, the small, smooth palms against the rough, bruised hands. "Please try."

He raised his eyebrows and squinted his eyes.

She let go of his hands. "Why do I love you," she said at the ground, not like she was asking a question.

"You don't; now get out."

She looked up at him for a moment, then dropped her gaze again. His vision blurred suspiciously and he could not look at her.

"I do love you," she answered the ground gratefully, as if it had answered her. "I wish I didn't but I do. And that's why I'm going to help you."

Chuck gaped in stupid astonishment, his jaw hanging open. "How are you going to help me?" He tried to inject sarcasm into his voice, and, unfortunately, succeeded.

But Blair ignored it. "Get up." She stood up and held her hand out to his.

He didn't take it. "Why should I?"

Blair shook her head, and slipped an arm around his shoulder, forcing his arm over her shoulder. Desperately, she pulled at him, and he got up.

She staggered at the weight, but somehow managed to hold him steadfast, thanks to his laboring as well. "You son of a Bass," she said slowly, groaning with the effort to keep him on his toes. "Come on, one step, now the other foot." There was an exit near the door, and she kicked it open with one foot. It led to a dimly lighted, very old, musty hallway, but Blair was blind to it.

They reached a dark staircase at the end of the hallway and Blair fumbled for the light-switch, but there was none. There was, however, a small oil lamp with a solitary light. As Blair's eyes adjusted to the light, she gripped the railing for support, pushing Chuck up one after every step she took.

There was a small second story, with several closed doors but, thankfully, miraculously, one open, leading to a small room with a solitary window. It provided a lovely view of an alleyway fight.

Blair pulled Chuck down and adjusted his limbs like a huge, grotesque Ken doll's. He sat limply on the bed, staring at Blair unquestioningly like a child.

While she lit more of the old-fashioned lights and closed the door, he tilted precariously and was about to sleep, full suit on and everything.

"Chuck," she whispered gently. He sat up with help.

She untied his shoes for him and unbuttoned his jacket, pulling it off in a burst of energy. She yanked off the tie and threw it impotently on the ground. Then, finally, she pulled the blanket over his shoulders and put him to sleep.

Real Chuck was hiding inside of Baby Chuck. He'd come out again. How soon, was anyone's guess.

O0...0O

Chuck woke up in the bitter, young hours of the day, the sun rising over the Manhattan skyline.

For a moment, it was blessed oblivion; he could barely remember his own name and where he was.

Then, like a tsunami, the flood of information hit him; he was the inebriated and scorned Charles Bass, chased after by his family and Jack Bass, the impudent opportunist, and Headmistress Quiller, and--

Blair was sleeping on the floor in a tangle of blankets, auburn curls spread out like something startlingly like a funeral pyre, her eyebrows slightly downwards in intense concentration, smooth oval face goddess-like in its perfection, like a Helen of Troy come alive.

She turned to her side, mumbling incoherently, opening her mouth and then closing it. A few rays of the as-yet dim sun illuminated a patch of her hair, glittering red-gold. Then she clutched the blanket with her arm as if grappling for it, as if it was her baby.

He valued the quiet Blair moments, when he was happy to sit and watch her most trivial movements and clutch it to his heart.

O0...0O

When Blair woke up, it was the most terrible déjà vu she had ever experienced in her life.

She ran desperately out of the room, colliding with a stoned whore clutching a bottle of whisky. "Sorry," she stammered.

"No problem." The girl waved her off.

"Have you seen Chuck Bass?"

"Yeah, a year ago, he was watching this gorgeous girl on stage--" She peered at Blair's face, suddenly inquisitive. "Hey--was that you?"

"Yes." Blair swallowed so her fear would not come out in her voice. " Have you seen him?"

"Last night, you mean?"

"Yes."

The girl propped herself against a wall for support and took an unhealthily generous swig of her whiskey. "This morning."

"When?"

"Um…."

Blair clutched the girl by the shoulders, adrenaline pounding in her veins.

"This morning," the girl said hastily. "Six-ish. Woke up and saw the shadow pass my room."

"Did he say anything, anything at all?"

"He was on his cellphone. Tellin' some guy he was goin' to…."

"To where? To where?"

"I think it was Japan."

"Japan?"

"Nonono," the girl thought hard for a minute, "no, it was--the Palace Hotel! That was it!"

"The Palace Hotel? That was it?"

"He said he was going to stay in a secret floor, something like that, and then 'to throw her off my track'."

"Anything else?"

"Something about him 'being MIA', and how he'd return to managing the company, 'thank you very much'. It was sarcastic, though--"

"Yes, you--" Blair shook her head. "And?"

"And then how he'd be in control of 'the situation' soon, just 'give me time'."

"That it?"

"Yawp."

"Thank you." Blair felt nervously in her pockets for money, and gave the girl money, she could not for the life of her remember how much. Neglecting her coat and purse, only wearing a short-sleeved dress and slippers, she ran through the bar, oblivious to the early-morning stares and catcalls, and then stepping into the street, oblivious to the freezing Manhattan cold, she hailed a taxi.

"Where to, miss?"

"The Palace Hotel." She would get him, and save him from himself, and they would be fine.