Author's Note: Several months ago, I received a prompt asking me to write about the moments where the NJBC and Dan realize how good of a father Chuck is. I could not allow Moozanna's birthday to pass by without fulfilling her prompt and wishing her all the best in the coming year. Happy birthday, Moo! I'm so happy to have met you.
Fabric cascades over the edge of the long table creating a pool of organza at her feet that she carefully avoids stepping on as she reaches across the table and pulls another fabric swatch closer to her. The long hours of back and forth debate over the feasibility of her designs with her seamstresses and the interim designers hired until she can find the right one to represent the Waldorf brand is shown in the way her features have pulled into the withering glare of a queen who hates to have her orders contradicted. And the whole room deflates in a sigh of relief when her eyes dart between the fabric samples and the design boards before her, when her features relax with lips parting to offer up words of approval.
"When can you have the prototype ready?"
"Thur—tomorrow," one of the seamstresses says in reply correcting her estimation when her employer's gaze focuses on her with eyebrows raised in question. "We can have the prototype ready tomorrow."
The correction is taken in stride yet the smile falls off her face once again when those gathered around her in the middle of the atelier's conference room fail to move quickly enough, when she has to clap her hands together to get their attention and send them scurrying off to their workstations. She watches them for a moment, waits for the comforting hum of scissors cutting out patterns and sewing machines stitching together hems to reach her ears before turning on her heels – careful to avoid the organza – and adjourning her office.
The center of the busy hive where the Queen B sits on her throne and manages personnel, finances, and endeavors to capture a greater market share just as she has done since her days on the MET steps; the center of her empire where she reigns and is wholeheartedly supported by the previous owner of the company and the current owner of her heart.
Current owners, she corrects, because the man on bended knees before her throne is also on bended knees before the future owner of their empire and the current owner of their hearts offering up a different kind of ring – brightly-colored, plastic, and decidedly not from Harry Winston. On bended knees and far too enamored with their baby boy to care about how his silk tie is streaked with slobber from grabby hands or how his cellphone has become Henry's toy of choice for the evening. On bended knees and far too interested in planting kisses against Henry's chubby cheek or against the slope of his pudgy neck to care about how his wife discovered their visit without him seeing her look of surprise.
For a moment, she pauses in the partially opened doors to her office to watch the way he laughs and smiles so easily with their little boy, the way he so obviously adores the magnificent outcome of their crazy love. For a moment, she watches as the ring – brightly-colored, plastic, and decidedly not from Harry Winston – is side-eyed by their little boy and ultimately accepted with a fist that slips right through the opening in the ring until it encircles his wrist much like a gold band circles his father's ring finger.
"Look how smart you are, Henry."
A lavishing of praise that began at the sound of Henry's first cry and continues to happen almost every day because their son is amazing and smart, cherished and wanted and – as he promised her in between celebrations of their impending arrival –never feels the cold void of a father's love the way his own father did because he can and will be a better man. A desire Blair confirms that he has already accomplished as she sinks to bended knees beside her two Bass men, as she plants a kiss against Henry's cheek and another against her husband's lips that lingers when her fingers stroke against his neck, when her words are whispered into his ear.
"You are an amazing father, Chuck."
One word, three letters sends her longing to go back to the days when family functions were stomached only after drowning hers in a copious amount of alcohol. One word, three letters sends her eyes darting around her mother's penthouse in search of something stronger than champagne to pour into her glass of orange juice. The blonde pinches her nose in an attempt to ward off a migraine releasing her grip and diving for her empty glass when the maid hired by her mother to serve Sunday brunch returns with a tall bottle of clear liquid. Vodka or gin – anything is fine so long as it cures the headache pounding in the back of her head and creeping its way closer and closer to a full-on migraine.
"Maybe we should give some to Henry."
"Why?"
The little boy's question causes most of those gathered around the table to groan, to shoot daggers at the dark-haired Humphrey seated at the table because his joke has triggered yet another round of the game consisting of one word, three letters. A game all those who accepted Lily's invitation to a van der Bass family brunch are quite tired of playing.
"Humphrey was attempting a joke, Henry. He was suggesting that we allow you to have a glass of alcohol in the hopes that it will make you sleepy."
"Why?"
"So you will stop asking questions."
"Why?"
The twenty-ninth rendition of her nephew's question causes her to sigh as she raises her champagne glass to her lips and treats it like a shot. Her eyes lift over the rim of the glass to watch her brother move her nephew's chair away from the table, gently pull the little boy to his feet, and march him with fingers entwined towards the elevator. Her eyes dart over the rim of the glass to see her best friend's lips press together in the telltale sign of her embarrassment, of her hope that the situation will be resolved without her being forced to apologize or leave in hasty retreat. A sight that cases her to set the glass back down on the table and eyes to flick across the table to see her mother shifting uneasily in her chair, to see her fiancé straining in his chair to watch the events occurring outside of their view.
The tiny strain of concern clashes with the larger strain of love for her nephew and sends her launching to her feet and hurrying after father and son because Henry does not deserve to have the weight of society's expectations for his behavior placed on his shoulders at the age of three. Does not deserve to have the parents and grandparents she had who dictated her attendance and appearance at certain functions, who chastised her behavior at even the slightest step out of line. And she is ready to launch into action, to protect her nephew's annoying yet precocious curiosity when she rounds the corner and spies her brother crouched before him in explanation rather than towering over the little boy in a lecture.
"Why?"
"Because it's not very nice to ask people the same question over and over again. It upsets them."
"Why?"
"Because they may not know the answer."
"Why?"
"Because they're not a Bass like you, Mommy, and I," her brother replies. The answer causes her nephew to laugh; to fold his arms over his chest, lift his eyes to the ceiling, and then level his gaze at his father's once more with each well-rehearsed word.
"I'm Henry Bass."
And one word, three letters is spoken in reply by her brother and answered by her nephew with a smile and more words about how he is a Bass because Blair is his mommy, Chuck is his daddy, and they both love him dearly. Words that are confirmed by his father with a hug, a kiss, a declaration of love, and a directive to return to the table and avoid a particular word for the rest of brunch; words that are confirmed by his aunt with a smile, a display of affection in the form of a hug that his father tries to shrug off, and words of her own.
"You're a great dad, Chuck."
Bright red and ridiculous, the sight of the one piece outfit – a signature item only his best friend can pull off – as he reaches the top of the stairs causes him to snort in laughter. The reaction is small and tame compared to the one he will undoubtedly receive by onlookers at the basketball court, but it fails to faze the man to whom it is directed at as he scrolls through the market reports and emails filling up the inbox on his phone.
"Henry ready?"
"Hello to you, too, Nathaniel. Henry will be dow—"
"I'm ready," the little boy excitedly announces as he bounds down the last few steps and into the living room.
The basketball gifted to him on his fifth birthday by his Uncle Nate is tucked under one arm, and his freehand snakes upwards to pull at the hood of his chosen attire – a kid-sized replica of his father's one-piece jumpsuit complete with white zipper running down the length of his chest. A replica that causes his uncle to shake his head, to look from son to father and back again before asking the little boy if he would like to change into the gym shorts, t-shirt, and sweatshirt gifted along with the basketball.
"Why?" Henry asks with his nose crinkling in confusion. "Mommy got me this so I could be like Daddy."
Before he can come up with a reply, however, his best friend steps in and instructs the maid hovering on the periphery of the room to escort Henry downstairs to where Arthur awaits in the limo. The little boy is swept from the room – confusion intruding on excitement – before his father turns on his uncle, before his father's voice drops into that protective growl he learned from his wife.
"Henry can wear whatever he wants."
"Come on, man, a one-piece? I don't want him to be mocked," the blonde replies. He is all too familiar with the damage gossip and bullying can inflict upon a person, with the havoc emulating a father can wreak, and he wants to shield his nephew from experiencing all the bad from his own childhood.
Forgetting, of course, that his best friend was openly mocked by his own father for wearing too much purple, for having a fashion sense deemed by his father as unbecoming of a Bass due to how far too closely aligned it is to that of his step-brother's sexuality in Bart's mind. Judgment his nephew is shielded from because Chuck will never go there not matter if Henry's fashion choices be matching red onesies and cravats or more mainstream gym shorts and ties.
"I will make sure Henry is confident and happy no matter what he wears or what he does. Now can we go, or do I need to continue to defend my son's fashion sense?"
"Nah, man, you know I support Henry no matter what," Nate confirms. "And how could he not be confident and happy? He has a dad like you behind him, Chuck."
Thoughts about the current plot point of his unfinished manuscript swirl in his head distracting him from the task at hand until a pencil skitters across the large dining table before him and falls with a clatter to the floor. The dramatic sigh squashes his musings on the events of his next novel and gives rise to thoughts of consternation about the situation because he is on deadline and would rather be anywhere but here. A fact his wife knew when she called him in a panic after she volunteered to watch the Bass children in Dorota's steed because it is all hands on deck at Waldorf Designs only to find that she cannot chase after the youngest Bass children – two schemers constantly going in opposite directions – and assist Henry with his math worksheets at the same time.
"This is stupid."
"No, it's not," Dan protests as he reaches for the plate of waffles he made to serve as examples of one-eighth and four-sixteenths just as his father did for him at Henry's age. "See, this is a whole waffle and when I cut it into six pieces, you get—"
"Waffles are gross."
There is nothing new about the announcement the eldest Bass child makes as he pushes back his chair, as he prepares to exit the dining room presumably to seek out something more entertaining and enjoyable than his math homework. And Dan twists his body in his chair and watches Henry head into the living room as he calls for the little boy to return to the table, to sit down and finish his homework in a voice that sounds far too much like his own father's. But Henry merely ignores him darting past Serena, who sits on the floor of the living room playing with the baby and does nothing to stop him, and snatching the phone off the side table by the couch.
"Who are you calling Henry?" Serena asks, and the pudgy fingers of the youngest Bass curl around her lip pulling and muddling her words about the differences in time zones when she receives her answer. But Henry disregards her warning as he punches the numbers into the phone, as he scuffs his shoe against the hardwood floors whilst the phone rings in his ear, as he quietly explains to the person on the other end of the line that he hates fractions.
A conversation presented as one-sided for the adults in the room that causes them to marvel over the way Henry trudges back to the dining room, picks his pencil up off the floor, and returns to his chair without another word of protest. Questioning looks thrown from the dark-haired Humphrey to the blonde van der Woodsen-Humphrey are met with the shrug of her shoulders, and Dan takes to popping strips of his cut up waffles in his mouth while he listens to Henry rattle off the questions the two have spent all afternoon agonizing over to the person on the phone.
"Five-eighths is greater than, less than, or equal to ten-sixteenths?"
For a moment, there is silence on the part of this conversation they can see, but then the little boy's face beams as though a proverbial light bulb has gone off over his head and answers are filled in such rapid succession that Dan must race to keep up in checking them off as he pops the last fifth of a waffle into his mouth. A piece of waffle he is still chewing on when Henry pulls the phone from his ear and holds it out to him.
"Here, Uncle Dan, Dad wants to talk to you."
He expects to hear some kind of chastisement for allowing Henry to place a four a.m. wake-up call to complete a math assignment yet, while the voice is laced with exhaustion and interrupted sleep, the man on the other end steers the conversation away from those expectations and towards a reminder that Henry is a Bass and needs an example he can relate to.
"Like what? Money?"
"Hotels and macaroons," he replies. "Henry should be okay with completing the rest of his homework but, if not, I told him he can call me again."
"Chuck," Dan says as his eyes dart to his wristwatch and thoughts about his manuscript are shoved aside by mental calculations about the differences in time zones, "it's not even five in the morning there. We can keep him from calling so you can sle—"
The protestations about that course of action and the chastisements about how Dan should never forget that he is always available to his children even when business endeavors force him to travel halfway around the world come immediately. A reminder that Dan Humphrey is not the only one seated at this table whose father is and always will be available to help and support him; a confirmation that Chuck Bass ended up being the better guy in that regard despite his previous expectations and writings to the contrary slipping past his lips.
"You're a good dad, Chuck."
"I know," he confirms. "It's a part of the Chuck Bass lifestyle."