Fandom: One Tree Hill/Gossip Girl
Title: Broken
Characters: Chuck Bass/Haley James (Scott), Bart Bass/Haley James (Scott)
Rating: PG13
Prompt: (29) Repression
Word Count: around 700
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Chuck's seventeen, Haley's twenty three so there could be some minor/adult stuff to work through.
Disclaimer: I don't own One Tree Hill or Gossip Girl, but if I did think of all the fun I could have :)
Notes: Written and posted on LJ a while ago now, decided to post this and it's companion piece as a two parter :)
She arrives in New York with the sole purpose of losing herself, even if it's just for a little while. Brooke offers her a home, a job and more importantly the kind of comfort that can only come from a girl's best friend.
Since Lucas is unavailable, Brookes the closest thing she has.
Still she's practically alone, grieving over the death of her baby boy and trying to forget that her ex husband even existed and she finds that the bright lights and the big city are fantastic at masking her pain.
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She meets Bartholomew Bass at a function Brooke is holding in one of his hotels, she has no idea why he zeroes in on her but the fact remains that he does and she's flattered.
He invites her to dinner, she accepts and before the month is over Haley James Scott has all but disappeared and Haley Bass stands in her place.
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She's made it clear she's not in love with him and Bart seems to be okay with that, she's pretty sure he's not in love with her either so it makes their marriage far less complicated than most.
He does however make it clear that he expects her loyalty and she's more than willing to promise it to him in exchange for the stability and safety his presence in her life provides.
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When he'd told her he had a son, she doesn't know why, but she'd expected a child, someone young, in need of a mother and an ache she hadn't known still existed settled into her heart.
It's a shock to her system when she finally meets Chuck because he isn't a child at all more like an almost fully grown man.
He's not many years younger than she is and she recognizes the way he stares.
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Bart's not really all that interested in her sexually and after the initial honeymoon period of their union has passed he touches her only a handful of times, but he's kind to her and somewhat affectionate and if she wasn't wearing his ring on her finger she'd be tempted to classify him as some kind of kindly uncle and not as her husband.
A lot of the time he isn't even around and she's left alone in their penthouse with the teen she still can't stomach calling her step son.
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Chuck is far more broken then he first appears to be and she feels a certain kinship for him because she's still broken too.
She can't control her mouth when she's around him and it's a little disconcerting because this seventeen year old boy seems to understand her better than anyone else ever has before.
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Brooke worries about her, the way only Brooke can. She notices when more often than not their conversations about Haley's home life begin to revolve around her husband's son and not around her husband.
She believes Haley's getting into a situation that is way over her head and Haley thinks that she could be right.
Chuck looks at her with eyes that seem to strip her bare and see into her soul and she's starting to feel like that promise she made to Bart is being tested way out of her bounds of control.
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Sometimes when he stumbles in after a long night out he looks so much like a little boy lost that the urge to comfort him stifles her.
There's a part of her that wants so achingly to soothe his worries away and a part of her that wants to take him away and shelter him from the world because she misses that glow she felt when she'd do those exact things for her own little boy and it's been so long since she was truly needed.
She doesn't over analyze but she's pretty sure what she's feeling isn't right.
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There's a war raging inside her heart and the battle is reflected back to her from the eyes of a boy she shouldn't want but does.
Some lines are made to be towed and some are simply there to be crossed and all she has to do is figure out which one of those lines her and Chuck are hurtling towards.