Author's Note: I was explaining the dowry storyline to a friend, who expressed displeasure with the way Blair reacted after finding out Chuck paid her dowry in 5x19, and was reminded later that day of a confrontation from 2x08 of "Scandal" by another friend. This draws heavily from that scene, but I could not get this moment, this idea out of my head.
"I knew it. You thought you could buy me back just like you thought you could sell me for your hotel."
He shakes his head no, rejects the words coming out of her mouth and the way her voice breaks as she speaks.
"You've got it all wrong."
"That's why you showed up with that ruse today about friendship," she throws back at him without listening to his explanation. There is a pause, just long enough for her to lace her voice with a twinge of disgust. "You bought my divorce, and you came to collect your prize."
There is a brief moment where he wants to yell, wants to scream at her for still thinking him to be the worst person in the world. But he holds onto the Chuck born out of the therapy and the pain of years and years of rejection, holds onto a clam voice that still manages to cut her down to pieces.
"Then why didn't I collect? I swear I did not want you to know about the dowry. The only people who knew were Nate and Andrew Tyler. I just wanted you to be free. Whom you choose to love with that freedom is up to you."
He walks away from her, forces his feet to move him to opposite side of the room so that he cannot see the effect his comments has on her. He's too disgusted to look at her right now, too disgusted with himself to stand in front of her. He had gone to her as a friend, gone to her out a desperate need to talk through his conundrum with someone who had been there, met Elizabeth, and saw the effect her appearance in his life had on him.
An hour later, when he has drowned three more scotches and lost track of Nate amongst the partygoers, he steps outside for a breath of fresh air. He is too distracted to pay attention to the scantily clad women at the party, too angry to even think about taking one of them home. Instead, because the world he inhabits is a cruel and soulless place, he finds her standing at the curb while Humphrey attempts to flag down a cab at the corner for the two of them.
He laughs because he cannot help himself. The scene is comical. Dan Humphrey trying to flag down a cab for a woman not accustomed to waiting for or riding in public transportation. His laughter gives him away, or maybe she is just programed to always notice his presence. Either way, she sees him and narrows her eyes at him in a harsh gaze. Yet, the action isn't smooth enough to the mask the flicker of –
He is not entirely sure what the flicker in her eyes could be described as. Pain? Regret? Apology? The last one causes him to sneer because Blair Waldorf never apologies to anyone.
Least of all him.
Everyone in her life is expected to come to her with their heart in their hands and a sincere apology on their lips in the hopes the Queen will allow them back into her court, back her good graces. She'll reject it, of course. Make the offender perform just the right amount of penance until they are sufficiently humiliated and reminded of their place beneath her Louboutin heel. It is a disgusting game she plays; one he refuses to participate in any longer.
"Did you need something, Bass?"
She snaps the question at him, steels herself with crossed arms and a tough stance for this confrontation. The grin carrying his nonverbal response is cold and calculating. The voice carrying his verbal response is sultry and seductive.
"See, you used to sound sexy when you called me Bass. Now it just sounds like I'm the doorman of your building."
She scoffs at his response, looks away from him towards Humphrey, and taps her foot impatiently. It is not entirely clear if she is losing patience with him or Humphrey, but he would be willing to bet money on her annoyance being directed at Humphrey's failures in flagging down her getaway car.
"Did you need something?"
Repeating her question is foolish and stupid, a miscalculation in this sport and the perfect opening for him to lay into her. Because the answer is yes, in fact, he does need something. Something you cannot buy in a store or pick up the back room of a club. Something she has made clear that she is entirely unwilling to give him.
"The hotel comment was below the belt," he informs her harshly.
Her eyes flash at him in anger; her body turns on wobbly heels to confront him. He wonders briefly how she has had to drink, wonders briefly if the knowledge of his genuinely selfless act is starting to affect her.
"Because it's so untrue?" She challenges with raised eyebrows and a haughty voice. He cannot deny his actions, cannot deny that he once treated her like something he owned rather than something he earned.
"You're playing the hotel card on the fact that I'm in love with you?"
She sighs, cries out in frustration at his declaration because these are not the words she wants to hear. Not from him. Not tonight. Of course she is allowed to play the hotel card, as he calls it. He traded her like he would a piece of property; he buys her like he would a new toy.
"Come on! I apologized," he reminds her sharply. "Many times. And you sat in that car and you said you forgave me. You said you loved every part of me. So you don't get to throw that in my face. It's insulting and beneath you."
She grows frustrated with his reminder of what transpired on that terrible day, grows angry at his final words. Because what is insulting and beneath her is being traded like an object to his uncle for a hotel, traded like a prized horse with her soon-to-be ex-husband for a cash payment.
"And designed to drive me away," he snaps. "I'm not going away."
"I don't have to drive you away," she hisses back at him. "You ran away. You left me in Tuscany and you slept with Lily's interior designer. You left the Empire State Building after two minutes and slept with Jenny Humphrey. You went to Paris and slept with Eva. You came back and –"
"And I slept with you!"
"No," she hisses. "You sent me away. You stood at that benefit and picked Louis for me. You walked away. You are away."
"So this is about Louis?"
"No," she snaps. Her voice escalates in anger until she is shouting in his face and those on the sidewalk are staring as they walk past. "No! This is –"
She takes a deep breath, drops her voice until everything comes out low and deep and laced with anger.
"I smiled at him, and I took my clothes off for you. I waited for you," she tells him. And then she pauses, swallows back the lump in her throat and corrects her misstatement.
"I wait for you. I watch for you. My whole life is you," she cries out in anguish. "I can't breathe because I'm waiting for you. You – you own me. You control me. I – I belong to you!"
He shakes his head no, rejects her statements with volatile movements. She is not waiting for him; she is not watching for him. Because if she was, she would not have rejected him in the dressing room before her wedding, at the hotel during her foiled escape, or any time after she came home from her farce of a honeymoon. She would not have stood in front of him days ago and told him point blank that she is not in love with him.
"You own me! You control me! I belong to you!"
The words are snapped at her, thrown back at her face with ferocious intensity because being amicable is not in their blood. She seems almost stunned at the way the tables have turned. He wonders briefly if she has forgotten the rules of the game, if she has forgotten that he is the best sparring partner she will ever have.
"You think I don't want to be a better man? You think that I don't want to dedicate my money to my company, my new hotel? You think that I don't want to be honorable, to be the man you once believed in?"
His voice cracks, fails him in that moment as the raw emotion he has tried to keep in check comes spilling forth. He let her go so she could be light and happy, be the Blair he loves without his baggage and darkness clouding her and weighing her down. And then she came back to him, promised once again to love all the baggage and darkness because if two people are meant to be together –
"My every feeling is controlled by the look on your face. I can't breathe without you. I can't sleep without you. I wait for you. I watch for you. I exist for you."
The last three sentences are sharp, punctuated by the harshness of his tone. He gestures around them, gestures to the opulence surrounding them and the society they were born into as he speaks his next sentence. But it is everything demonic and unlovable about him that he is really gesturing to as he steps closer towards her and hisses the words out.
"If I could escape all of this and runaway with you –"
He cuts himself off, will not allow himself to verbally express the dream he has in the midst of this never ending nightmare.
"There are no buyers and sellers here," he snaps at her, disgusted that she could still think him capable of such a ruse. He had been a stupid child then, caught up in a need to make his father proud and the idiotic idea that the darkest and the worst parts of him would never scare her away. "You're nobody's victim, Blair. You're nobody's property. I belong to you!"
"I don't want to own you!" She cries out, vehemently rejecting the claim he says she has laid about him. "You might be comfortable in the human flesh trade, but I –"
"Whether you want to be or not, you are in this business," he informs her scathingly. "My life, my miserable existence is owned by you. You marry your prince; you pick Humphrey to share your freedom with. And, still, I cannot walk away because I love you. I am in love with you. You are the love of my life, and I – I belong you."
The crackle, the spark burns within them threatening to explode and detonate everything around them. They stand toe to toe on the sidewalk staring each other down. Yet this time it is her that reaches out and grabs his face, her that molds their lips and their bodies together. He is stunned momentarily as he is pushed back against the wall of the building, but the feeling of her in his arms again jolts him into action until he is grabbing and touching and savoring every part of her just as fervently as she is grabbing and touching and savoring every part of him.
Their actions are frantic, born out an innate need to fuse themselves together until they are nothing more than Blair and Chuck, Chuck and Blair. And then just as his hands are sliding across her ass and his lips are plunging to her neck, she yanks herself away from him and leaves him with arms full of air.
"I can't," she informs him as though that is explanation enough.
He does not reach for her, does not try to stop her as she runs towards Humphrey and the awaiting taxi. He is tired of trying to make her stay, tired of watching her walk away, and this time he closes his eyes so he will not have to watch this happen again.
He opens them when he hears the distinct sound of the car pulling away from the curb, opens them to find Humphrey standing on the curb. Alone and with that distinct blend of confusion and longing and hatred that only Blair Waldorf can induce. Their eyes connect as Dan's hand curls into a fist, as Humphrey debates over punching the man who just moments ago had his lips and his hands all over her. And all Chuck can do is offer him a smirk, a shrug, and a few parting words.
"You can dance, you can joke, and you can be the jester for the Queen," Chuck informs him as he steps away from the wall and heads back into the party. "But at the end of the day, all you will be is a fool for falling in love with her."
"And what does that make you?"
Humphrey calls after him, bids him to stop before the doors are shut and the lines of communication are severed between them. Chuck pauses, looks at Dan with a menacing glare that softens and sags under the weight of his own reality.
"Me? I'm Chuck Bass, the biggest fool of them all and utterly owned by the Queen."