Author's Notes: This drabble-esque piece came to me after I watched 'Chuck in Real Life', so this one-shot obviously has spoilers for that episode. By the way, feel free to review, but know that even if you don't, I will keep writing. I write when I feel like it. It's not dependent on reviews. That said, I appreciate every single review.
Disclaimer: It's not mine. I just like to play with them.
Someday You Will Be Loved
Blair feels as though the air has been knocked out of her. The strength she had felt only a moment ago when she was holding onto Chuck floats away, coinciding with his leaving.
"Please don't leave," she speaks aloud into the semi-darkness of the firelight, rising to her lace-clad feet, her footstep light, sinking into the dense carpet of her room. The fire is dampened now, the evening's chill descending upon her room. It's autumn in New York, and the nights are getting a little colder.
Of course, the room seems chillier than it is and Blair's bed, with its satiny down comforter, is cooling down from the heat they created when they were pressing each other down deeper still into the sheets. Her arms fly up to cross over her chest and she pulls a corner of her lip into her mouth with her teeth, biting down slightly. Her apprehensive gaze rises to meet his.
"Are you going to give me a reason to stay?" he questions her. "Because there's only one reason I would."
"I thought I had," she replies, gesturing to her scantily-clad form.
He looks askance past her at a red swathe of fabric, blossoming from an antique brass hook on the wall. He blinks, hard; it's as though he knows what it is before she notices what he's gazing at, and she tells him what he already realises to be true.
"It's the dress you bought me when – ", Blair falters, taking a hesitant step towards Chuck.
"I know what it is," he cuts her off, almost brusquely. Blair cringes as though he's taken to her delicate skin with a cigarette and burned a neat little black hole into her. Blair looks down, and when her gaze lifts again, her eyes are hardened and steely.
"I didn't want it to go to waste, and it's very nearly out of season," she finally answers, to justify her choice of frock. He takes a step towards her.
"Are we?" he asks her, pinning her with a curious stare.
"Are we what?" she asks back, busying herself with straightening up the dent in the bedcovers. She shivers, and Chuck wonders why she's not wearing a robe. He also wonders where it is, but then realises he doesn't know anymore.
They don't share this room anymore.
"Out of season," he clarifies.
"I don't know what you mean," Blair replies, her tone puzzled. He walks forward to take her gently by the arm, prompting her to sit down on the carpet with him. He sits first, leaning against the footboard of the bed. He reaches up behind him for one of Blair's many throw pillows, arranging it against the footboard so Blair's lower back won't get stiff and sore.
"We're missing the point here, Blair," Chuck tells her.
"What is the point, Chuck? I'd really like to know," Blair replies angrily, turning her torso away from him. She brings her knees up to her chest, clutching them in her arms.
"I just wondered sometimes whether it did any good to be chasing you. I experimented with a few ways of pursuing you, and it was like every single one of them just pushed you further away. I pleaded with you to stay and not leave with Marcus; you did. And I know it's my fault – ", he says, heading off the indignant retort he knows is imminent – "and I'm sorry. I tried to explain, but my explanation wasn't the one you wanted to hear – which, again, is my fault – Blair, I can't talk to your back."
"I'm turned away from you because nothing you have said has made me want to turn around," Blair replies, continuing to keep her body angled away from him. He reaches out for her shoulder, tentatively pressing on her skin, and when his hand shakes, he knocks her bra strap off her shoulder. Blair flinches; but she doesn't reach up to jerk his hand away. Aside from that flinch, she makes no move to pull it up again, either.
Her silky shoulder stands out from the rest of her, probably because it's bare, and even though she's only wearing a bra, some skimpy knickers and lace stockings, she suddenly looks a bit more naked to him. He thinks he should maybe put it back for her. Maybe.
Instead, he positions himself flush behind her, belly to back, and leans forward to kiss her on her bare shoulder. He drops kiss after kiss there, and reaches around her. He pulls her into his lap, leaning her head against his chest, and trails kisses along her shoulder until he reaches the side of her neck.
He can't see her expression; he doesn't know what she wants. He thinks that maybe this should just be about showing her his feelings. He continues kissing her even though his mouth is dry and his lips would rather be on hers instead, drinking her in.
He doesn't want to know whether she's bored or even asleep. She could be contemplating the ceiling for all he cares, because right now it's only about his insatiable desire to touch her. She doesn't shiver or shift uncomfortably. She just sits there like a statue, unresponsive. He dreads the moment he knows must come; the moment she tells him to stop.
His fingers trace light circles on her back and abdomen. He knows she doesn't like it when people touch her stomach; it makes her feel fat. He wants her to know that she's not fat. Sometimes it scares him how thin she is, and he has a notion he knows what causes that, and it makes him feel sick, as sick as she must feel, some days.
She started small to begin with; is there any more to take of her? Chuck knows that there is, and he wants to take all of her. It feels as though she's letting him.
What he wants most of all, though, is for her to take him too.
Without warning, Blair turns herself around. She places her legs around either side of his middle, repositioning herself in Chuck's lap. She leans her forehead against his chest and breathes him in. Chuck shifts as gently as possible, because his pants are getting a little tighter and he doesn't want Blair to sit down directly over his groin. He reaches out to place his hand under her chin, gently tugging her face upwards so that he can study her in excruciating, painstaking detail. She opens her mouth slightly: is she waiting for his kiss or does she want to say something?
"Blair," he whispers into the almost-darkness; the fire is so close to being out. "You turned around." She blinks and nods slightly.
"You made me want to turn around," she says simply.
"How?" he asks her, studying her face intently, reaching forward to dip his fingers into her hair. She makes no reply at first, then, without warning, she leans backwards, bearing herself down onto the carpet, pulling him down with her. He pulls her up again a little so he can slip the throw pillow under her tender head, cushioning her. Her fingers reach up to undo the buttons of his shirt and he nearly lets her, but the fog in his brain clears and he holds the lapels closed.
"I thought this was what you wanted," she protests, her voice a whisper.
"It isn't," Chuck replies. "Not only this."
"Then what? What do you want?" Blair asks him. She's genuinely confused and he fights the urge to tell her, but his courage wins the battle between head and heart and damned pride.
"I want you."
"But you already have me," she replies, not comprehending. He can't blame her; he hasn't done a great job of explaining himself, "Or, well, you're about to have me," she continues. Her sarcasm has kicked in; clearly, the fog in her head has lifted, too. "Or, well, you will, if you just stop talking."
"I want you for my own," he clarifies, hoping that this time she'll understand what he means.
"I am," she replies. He's starting to feel frustrated; he wants her to understand this. It's so vital that she does.
Abruptly, Chuck rolls off of Blair and sits up, away from her.
"Why can't we just say it?" he asks her, at the end of his tether.
"Say what? What's there to say?" Blair responds, sitting up too.
"What neither of us can say," he answers her, "But if we could, it might be less frightening. Three words..."
"... Eight letters..." Blair picks up.
"...Three syllables..." they finish in unison. He shifts back over to Blair, and puts his arm around her shoulders while she snuggles up closer to him.
"Maybe the fact that we can't say it means we shouldn't be saying it yet," Blair muses aloud.
"But if it's what we feel, then why is it so hard? I told Nate that I did, but I can't tell you, and I wish I could, I really wish I could because I feel it, and if you knew that it'd be easy, and the beauty of us is that we don't have to say much, but..."
"Shhh," Blair whispers, her finger upon his mouth. As she starts to draw her hand away, he takes it in his own, clasping his fingers through hers. He uses his free hand to draw her face closer, and just before their lips meet, she whispers something against his lips. Chuck stops short of kissing her when he hears it.
"What did you say?" he asks her, hoping that it's those three words he wants to hear.
"I said, 'I know'," Blair replies. He's not sure if she's telling the truth, which, essentially, summarises their entire relationship. Neither of them knows whether the other is telling the truth, about their feelings, about their relationship, about anything.
"How do you know?" Chuck muses aloud.
"I don't. That's the problem," Blair replies, looking sideways at him. "I don't know anything. I can't be certain of anything. I thought I could be certain when you told me you wanted to take it slow. I thought I could be certain when I tried to seduce you earlier. I thought it was for sure and I thought that it would be for real. But now the rules of the game have changed again. I can't keep up with it, Chuck. I'm so tired of trying. And it feels like I never get anything in return."
"Blair, I – "
"You dethroned me and you pitted me against the one person I can't claim my crown back from. What did you think would happen? Did you think I would run back to you, saying that you're the only person I can rely on? I can't rely on you, Chuck. I'd be an idiot to."
"I'm sorry, Blair."
"Are you?" she asks him, looking up into his eyes.
"I'll be sorry for anything I do that pushes you further away from me," Chuck answers.
"Why do it in the first place, though?"
"Why do you think I do it? I do it because I want to be with you!" he replies, exasperated. Blair detaches Chuck's arm from around her shoulders and gets to her feet, crossing the floor. She says, "No, Chuck. You want to be with me on your own terms."
"Well, I can't be with you on your terms only," he argues, getting up and following her, switching on a lamp so they can see one another.
She swivels around to face him. "You want me to tell you that I love you, but I don't want to love a person who doesn't know how to love me. I tried it with Nate. It hurts. Honestly, it's like we're a waste of my time and energy. It's as though I'm trying to make something happen, but I can't accept that it's not going to happen."
"I can't accept it either," Chuck agrees quietly. "But I realise that even if I do say those three words, those eight letters, I'm not necessarily yours and you're not necessarily mine. It's never that simple."
"Then what else is there?" Blair asks. "Do I chase you, like you said?"
"Do you think I want to be chased?" Chuck counters.
"I think – I think you just want me, and how that comes about really doesn't matter," Blair responds. "I mean, I hope that's the right answer. But me? I don't necessarily want to be chased. I want to wake up every morning and know that I have you in my life. But should that knowledge come from you just telling me you love me?"
"No, it shouldn't," he concedes. "Asking each other to say those words as the only guarantee of our feelings is ridiculous. We both know we need more than that to make this work."
"When you couldn't say it, back in the Hamptons, I had time to think afterwards, and I realised that it was okay that you couldn't. It would have been okay if only you'd told me and shown me, in other ways. But you didn't – well, not in my view, anyway – and that is why I went with Marcus."
"Honestly, Blair, you look wonderful tonight, and I'm so sorry I didn't notice the dress - or its significance. But, when I think about it, I want to tell you that you don't need to set up these elaborate schemes or contrive romantic settings so that we can be together. It doesn't always need to be cluttered with sexy lingerie or candlelight. It's you and me, and you know that.
"Because years from now, when we're older and I have to rely on nasal spray to get it up and you've just celebrated one hundred rounds of Botox and you've stopped throwing up your food so that you're always thin..." Blair gasps at this; he knows her darkest secret.
"When all that finally happens, we'll still belong to one another. Candlelight won't always hide the features you hate, that invisible pocket of cellulite you think you have - which, by the way, you don't. You may, eventually, but at this very moment, you, to me, are perfect.
"And I'm going to take a wild guess that even when time changes you, my attraction to you won't." Blair's mouth drops open and she tries to speak, but Chuck holds up a finger in an 'I'm not finished' gesture, and she closes her mouth.
"Sexy lingerie won't always flatter you. Your breasts will drop when you bear children, and unlike the time you thought you were pregnant, I hope that they'll be mine. Neither of us wants our children to be solely raised by nannies. Eventually, you won't be able to combat the fine age lines by injecting toxins into your forehead.
"Someday, you'll be too tired to concoct new ways of seducing me because one of the kids is up at night having a raging nightmare that's gone on for five successive nights already, and another one is scared of the boogeymen in the closet. You'll crave your sleep. You'll be too tired to have sex with me and the times we do, I'll be so exhausted that I'll lie on you for five minutes before I roll over and go to sleep.
"But what I can promise you is that even through those things, my feelings for you won't change. I can't even tell you about them right now – at least, not in the way I'd like to, or you'd like me to – but I want you to know that they're there. We're inevitable."
And with that, he starts to walk away, but he turns around just before he leaves, and says, with a wink and a smirk: "But if you want to chase me, it wouldn't hurt."
Blair shuts her bedroom door behind him, blows out the candles and gets into bed, falling asleep with a smile on her face, already planning for their next meeting.