Forgiven
Author: Sky Samuelle
Summary: Post 1.13. Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass' long journey toward mutual forgiveness and each other.
AN: Inspired by Within Temptation' song 'Forgiven'
Rating: G
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Couldn't save you from the start
Love you so it hurts my soul
Can you forgive me for trying again?
"Just like you wanted," she told him on the worst night of her life. "I have no one left to turn to but you."
If Blair Waldorf was been less desperate, she could have understood the frigid rigidity of his features, the unfeeling harshness of his gaze; she could have understood that Chuck Bass was no longer up to playing their game. Instead, she thought he had exposed her to ridicule and disapproval because it was the only way he could have her back.
Until that moment-the fatal moment when she had looked at him and marked victory as his – even Chuck wasn't been completely sure of which his reaction to her surrender would be been. He had alienated his best friend for the girl who sat before him, looking more defeated and weary than he had ever seen her, yet he felt nothing but a biting bitterness, a violent desire to lash and break her further. He had never wanted to feel for her… if to surgically remove his pathetic, self-demeaning obsession was been a concrete possibility, he would have seized it without hesitations long ago.
For Blair, all he was a last resort, a second choice. She wasn't even showing him enough respect to bother pretending otherwise. But Chuck was always been the first resort for Nathaniel. For years, the other boy was been a constant, almost his closest resemblance to family… and now it was over. Because of her, the one who couldn't properly want him. Not even now.
"Actually, you don't even have me."
"Enough." Blair tried to cut him off, pretending with herself that something in his stance, in the dryness of his words, wasn't filling her with an obscure misgiving. She was too tired for his mind-games now. She needed her friend back, the one who wouldn't look down on her and judge her.
"I'll try to be more succinct," he continued, his voice firm enough to chill her, because he never sounded this cold and hard when he spoke to her. "You held a certain fascination when you were beautiful, delicate. Untouched. But now you're like… one of the Arabians my father used to own, rode hard and put away wet. I don't want you anymore, and I can't see why anyone else would."
Chuck explained himself so slowly, so bluntly that she had no defence against his deliberate cruelty. So she remained still and silent and numb. Pressing pause while her brain kept rewinding his speech, again and again.
There was something especially damaging in having the one person who ever saw you in the full glory of your truest colours painting your deepest insecurities into life with careless brutality.
She knew she was supposed to react somehow, to reply properly, so she was about opening her mouth before she realized there weren't any words coming.
He wouldn't look at her anymore, like if the very sight of her sitting here with him was revolting.
Blair's brain couldn't grasp what was happening… Chuck pulling away in disgust? He didn't do morality. He felt like a stranger and Blair couldn't grasp it, she couldn't grasp why she was still here, waiting for him calling his bluff, willingly handing him jaded fragments of herself and somehow expecting he sewed them back together, rather than tearing her further apart.
But he wasn't pretending and there was this intolerable icy weight on her lungs, keeping her mute and dumb.
Very slowly, she rose and left.
She didn't turn around, didn't look back, because she was struck on auto-pilot, but she lingered a few seconds before the closed door, half-certain in spite of everything that she was about to hear him calling her name, announcing this was a bluff and now they were even, they could move on the next step.
It never happened. Blair didn't get the chance to see Chuck looking after her once she was out the door, anguish painted on every line of his face.
He downed another glass to forget the instinct to run after her. She had taken everything from him: his best friend, his self-esteem, his pride, his perception of himself. It was only fair he had taken from her the only thing he could, the only one which mattered to her: her precious reputation. So what did it matter if her suffering affected him too?
Your silence makes me hold my breath
Time has passed you by
It took Blair weeks to finally understand why Chuck's loathing had hurt her more than anything her mother or Nate had ever said or done. It was because she had genuinely believed Chuck had liked her for herself even when she used to be only the bitchy girlfriend of his best friend. She had never needed measured-up words when she spoke with him. She had trusted him enough, as a friend, to offer her virginity to him. Alcohol had helped that choice, sure, but mostly she had known she could afford feeling confident in her skin around him.
But she had known Chuck Bass for years… she knew the way he used women, so she should have guessed he would have seen her differently after having her. But she was been lured in by the feminine power he had allowed her to discover in herself, so elated at the prospective to exercise over someone else the hold Nate had always exercised on her than honestly the concept of Chuck loathing her had never crossed her mind. Chuck Bass, marking himself as the morally superior one? A laughable concept. He said himself he abhorred morality in each form and set.
It seemed his fascination over her was been all about possession… the moment Nate had set his hands on her body, Blair had become washed up goods. Just some whore he had played with for awhile, not unlike the countless others she had seen him on his arm at countless parties.
Oh for so long I've tried to shield you from the world
Oh, you couldn't face the freedom on your own
Here I'm left in silence
Blair Waldorf used to follow a script, like her life was a play and she knew by heart both her role and her ultimate ending. She used to be a perfect, pristine Upper East Side Princess with the reputation of a well-behaved, conservative, uptight socialite. She used to have her perfect wedding programmed and an unshakable belief Nathaniel Archibald would be the one to put a ring on her finger.
Now Nate wouldn't speak to her, and she was forced watching as he dated Jenny Humphrey without so much but a scornful line. Her old friends were ostracizing her, all except for Serena, who was so utterly and pathetically in love with her Dan that being around them 24-7 was beginning to grate on Blair's already sore nerves. She was used to receive admiration and a touch of fear from her peers, to deal with the expectations her image placed on her shoulders by purging her dinner inside the toilet.
She used to have this detailed plan laid out before her – Nate, Yale, 2.5 kids- and it was gone so suddenly her head was still spinning but she had yet learn how to deviate.
When she looked into the mirror nowadays, she didn't entirely recognize the reflection it gave her back .Who was Blair Waldorf truly? Not the angelic character she had pretended for years, not the wannabe queen who lived a movie life. Not the slut everybody loved to describe recently… Blair hoped not.
But deep down, she wondered why obtaining what she wanted turned always to be so difficult.
She wasn't enough perfect for her mother, not enough loose or funny or pure for her childhood sweetheart. And Chuck…
There was a new girl at school. Amena. Honey-blonde, pretty like a regular Misha Barton clone, probably as anorexic as Blair was bulimic. Popular from day one.
And Chuck was spotted so often with her than Gossip Girl was more than overtly enthusiast. All her texts were a variation of the same theme – is C turning a new leaf?- and Blair was starting to loathe most sincerely her cell phone. For some reason, the idea of Chuck changing for someone he was barely acquainted withwas more hurtful than ridiculous, so much that the Blair's stomach clenched whenever she saw those two together.
She tried to rationalize it, to deny it, to trivialize it. At last, Blair simply settled on despising Amena for her bad taste in shoes and men, and her easy-going personality.
Eventually she stopped turning away when Chuck was within her sighting range, learning to swallow down the bitter taste of shame and betrayal mingling in her pounding heart. She faced head on his sneers, his derisive looks. She provoked with seething glances his acerbic barbs, reciprocated them with sarcasm of her own.
She could feel lost in her current circumstances, but she wouldn't have given him the satisfaction of knowing the full extent of his victory on her.
You gave up the fight
You left me behind
All that's done' s forgiven
You'll always be mine
I know deep inside
All that's done' s forgiven
In some ways, being the object of Chuck Bass's enmity wasn't all that different from being the object of his so-called affections. He still went out of his way to make her blood to boil, except now it occurred less often and less pleasantly.
She could still mock everything he said or did, except now there was more malice than humour in it.
They still watched each other, although they both would have died before admitting it.
There were also few conversations, as months passed by, when the resentment permeating the air between them was so subdued than it felt almost like they could forget and be friends again. Neither would consider taking that final step, approaching that bridge; they weren't built that way.
"Aren't you tired of her yet?"
"What can I say? After crawling inside each single virgin and slut in Manhattan, the very concept of spending whole the night with the same girl again and again became kinky. You learn what she likes, teach her what you enjoy…"
"You are heinous, vulgar and- "
"Hot?"
"Shut up."
Conversations like this one, Blair mused as she walked away from him, shutting out a disturbingly vivid mental picture of Chuck and his blonde hoe all over each other, made setting appropriate boundaries all the more difficult.
I watched the clouds drifting away
Still the sun can't warm my face
I know it was destined to go wrong
You were looking for the great escape
To chase your demons away
In the aftermath of his disastrous obsession with Blair, Chuck Bass was been appalled to realize his life would never come back to what it used to be.
To his credit, he had tried his hardest to prove his misgivings wrong. But the more he surrounded himself with beautiful, curvy, dark-haired girls the more his alcohol-affected mind drifted to the one brunette who had ever meant anything to him.
He couldn't manipulate himself into finding blondes and red-heads all that attractive neither. Even if his fame as organizer of the wildest parties in UES left him hardly short on friends, the break he was unsuccessful to mend with Nate gave his brave nights a vague sense of purposelessness.
So when Amena came along, Chuck thought she was perfect. If one-night stands no longer did the trick, he could fill his hollowness with her until he was sated and whole again. He liked the blonde girl enough… a great part of his attraction to her was the fact she was new, and he could feel free to initiate her into their little private circle before someone advised her to mind his womanizing ways.
Then there were her wide, hazel eyes. Doe eyes, hiding enough shadows than if Chuck looked into them long enough, he could grasp a glimpse of another girl. One who, unlike Amena, didn't cover her insecurities with a bubbly laughter and a façade of sugary superficiality. One with a sharper, cutting wit he was unable to let go completely. He didn't understand why, but when Blair was there where he could see her, breathe her in, he had to be involved somehow. Even if it was only to make her hate him as much he hated her.
He wouldn't allow that bitch to feel indifference toward him ever again.
Sometimes, he could almost fool himself into suspecting she felt the same.
Oh for so long I've tried to shield you from the world
Oh, you couldn't face the freedom on your own
And here I'm left in silence
Her universe had ran according her personal timetable for so long that it was uncomfortable standing still, waiting for her chance to climb back the social ladder.
So when she began abusing her antidepressants, Blair did so by choice. It was about control, and not having it anymore, and needing having part of it back. At the very least, she needed control over her moods if she was to get over this crisis with a clean mind. She wouldn't accept going around with her emotions scattered all over the place.
And it felt good, even if she had a sneaking suspicion it was wrong, because she nothing in her life had made her so giddy, so free of peer pressure, so at ease with her body as those little red pills. She didn't feel fat anymore, or guilty about an extra spoonful of ice-cream.
She was half surprised, half relieved nobody noticed her new vice.
When Carter Baizen invited both she and Serena at his birthday party, Blair knew it was her occasion to re-insert herself in her rightful place, so she planned meticulously her attire, her make-up to impress with her poised elegance her hostile audience. Serena was very proud she wasn't obsessing obscenely over it as once it was her old habit, but without her new red little friends, Blair knew she wouldn't be been able to take it so in stride.
It was a success. For the first time, Blair didn't completely squashed under the pressure of all those eyes watching her for a wrong step, she felt confident… she felt like she had always imagined Serena felt.
And then… she overheard something which made her night even sweeter.
"My boyfriend is wasted," Amena giggled in that missy-prissy silvery way of hers which usually
never failed to drive Blair around the bend, setting herself between Iz and Kati.
"Trust me A, that's no fresh news" Hazel sighed with a dismissive wave of her hand.
"Trust me, it is. He's so out of it, I had to ask Carter help me to hide him in a guest room while he whined nonsense."
Discreetly, after a furtive glance at the dance floor spot where Dan and Serena were dancing cozily, Blair slid out the crowed room, absurdly close to gloating about Amena's outstanding girlfriend skills.
Kicking Chuck when he was down was an appealing enough prospective, but the possibility to provoke him into saying something compromising while he was incapacitated enough to not censor himself was a golden opportunity she couldn't afford losing.
Concerned about his welfare? Ah, she wasn't! Not a tiny bit, nevermind how long they had known each other!
Blair wasn't prepared for how loud her heart slammed against her ribcage when she finally found him, laying half-conscious and bright-eyed on a bed. She hated that the pitiful sight put a damper on her giddiness.
"Even for you, this is a new low, Bass. Do I need to call an ambulance? "
The sound of her voice seemed to force him awake from his artificial dreamland, and his gaze, unfocused at first, narrowed on her hovering face in recognition. The slow, ruthless grin which graced his lips was no good omen.
"Ah, Waldorf. Hadn't I ordered two whores?"
"I wouldn't worry; your girl is downstairs recruiting. You know, in between publicizing your tragic disposition."
Strangely, Blair didn't take particular offence to him. Maybe she was getting used to this; trading back and forth hateful insults. Most of time, it resembled, in mood if not in theme, to their once friendly bantering.
"So you came exacting your pound of flesh, before anyone else?"
"I'm not that desperate, but thank you, it's nice knowing you are."
The way his smug expression melted to give away to anger was so totally worth coming there.
"Putting it out for Carter already?" he hissed so close than she felt his breath on the side of her face, and it gave her shivers. How had Chuck propped up on his elbows so quickly anyway? He was supposed to be incapacitated!
Blair put a hand on his chest and pushed him back down, now definitely pissed enough to refuse justifying herself to him. For what it concerned her, if Chuck supposed Carter had any ulterior motives for inviting her here tonight –outside winning back the Serena's sympathies, that was- he was welcome to keep his paranoia to himself. With her great enjoyment.
"You aren't in any position to judge. Charles Bass turning into a serial monogamist? I never thought I would have seen the day. Were you growing afraid to catch AIDS?"
"Please. Jealousy does nothing for your once passable wit. "
"Don't flatter yourself; I'm barely mystified at your lack of taste. I can hardly imagine what Amena's got that's so special."
"She isn't you, for starters."
Blair coerced her features to freeze before her face had the chance to fall, tried to breath even if it hurt, and she wasn't anticipating that. After everything, she wasn't expecting anything he could say held still power over her.
Chuck saw her pulling away from him, the poison of her hurt, betrayed expression spreading in his veins. He didn't feel remorse. He didn't.
Just… she had misunderstood his meaning. He needed focusing on someone else now he no longer had Nate or her in his life. This was what he was alluding to, nothing else. But why should it matter to him if he had bruised her pride without even trying? If this had occurred with anyone else, he would have been gloating.
"Oh, right. I forgot I'm a race horse according your standards and don't we all know how high those are?"
Even to her ears, she sounded haughty and offended. It horrified them both, although for very different reasons. Until this moment, they had mastered the art of avoiding the merest reference to that particular conversation of theirs.
Chuck's sharp smile spread, his gaze growing harder. When he spoke, his words couldn't be any farther from sympathetic.
"Poor Blair. I figure rejection stings, especially if coming from a last resort. Has it made you feel like you're nothing? It must not be nice, having a taste of your medicine."
Blair inclined her head pensively, staring him back in a way that, if Chuck was been any less under the influence, would have alerted him right away of his faux pas.
"Is that your twisted, insane way to say I made you feel like nothing?"
After last glare in her direction as he waved her away, he covered his eyes with his other arm, and muttered, suddenly appearing and sounding very much like a scorned three-year-old kid.
"Oh, shut the hell up you two-bit, conceited, butterflies-butcher."
With her heart in her throat, Blair backed away from the bed and left. This wasn't the kind of secret she had hoped snatching from his loose mouth. Had she really mortified his pride as much Nate had mortified hers? It couldn't be more than that, could it?
You gave up the fight
You left me behind
All that's done' s forgiven
Every sharp corner in her bedroom was softening, every shape blurred-edged and distant. Blair felt like flying, even if keeping lights on hurt her eyes. She found herself unable to stay still, excited for no reason at all. Everything around her felt different, more alive and more far away at once and she knew why this was.
Friday night alone in an empty house and she was been unable to resist temptation.
One pill more won't matter, she had repeated to herself. It scared her that she might have been wrong, because she felt too good, too light-headed, but she knew it wasn't supposed to work this way. It was intellectually wrong, but it didn't feel wrong. It felt better than anything and a small but tenaciously nagging part of her brain was concerned that it meant control had somehow slipped through her fingers. Again.
Blair's fingers caressed the rigid vinyl of one of her father's old LP, turned the player on and danced on her tiptoes, her feet bare on the pleasantly cool, shiny surface of her bedroom floor.
It was such a pretty song. Her father used to love it. Left behind… just like her, a shame. Or maybe she had snatched it for remembering their nicest pre-Roman days by, she couldn't really recall.
Her foot slipped and she fell with a thud on her back. She laughed and laughed at her lack of finesse, until her giggles turned self-depreciating and she felt like crying.
Blair curled to hug her knees to her chest in that weird position, her heart slowing down, warmth pooling in her tummy, not unlike desire. Somewhere inside, there was fear, because the song wasn't over yet, but she was having some difficulty to follow its lyrics.
Silly of her -she had just wait this out- but she couldn't help being a little afraid.
Her hand grasped her cell, which had slipped from her pocket, and Blair kept it close to her breast. "Call," the girl muttered, at everybody and nobody inparticular.
Useless waiting had always annoyed her. You could never count on other people to have your needs satisfied, you always needed to prompt them or bribe them somehow toward the right direction.
She didn't allow herself to realize whom she was calling until his voice picked on.
"What do you want?"
He sounded annoyed and Blair fleetingly wondered if he was been busy with someone else. If so, she wasn't at all sorry of intruding.
"Rude as ever, Chuck. If you don't learn some manners, people will begin wonder if you weren't the one raised in Bronx. Dan is so much better-behaved."
For some reason, she got the feeling it was improper being so soft-spoken with him. They weren't on the best terms lately, were they? She felt sort of resentful toward him right now.
Oh, and had she actually referred Dan Humfrey as an example of proper behaviour?
"What is it?"
The sudden tension in Chuck's clipped query made her smile. There were still reasons to be fond of him, however arrogant, disturbed and whorish he might be.
But she didn't know what answering – hopefully he wasn't mistaking this for a booty call- so she let silence stretched on.
"Are you okay, B?"
"Yup, silly. Why wouldn't I be? "
She exaggerated the airy quality of her tone on purpose, wanting to see how far she could push him.
"Where are you? This fucking music is making me deaf. "
Chuck was definitely close to panicking now and it sent her giggling over the phone as she rolled to lay on her stomach. Enjoying the shivery sensation of marble against her cheek, she drawled: "I was just kidding. I'm just home. Can you pick me up? I think… I think I need you to drive me somewhere."
"Why?"
"I've taken too much of it."
Closing her eyes, Blair prayed he wouldn't pose any other questions. He could get mileages of ammunition against her for that small favour, already. How hadn't that occurred to her before?
But Chuck didn't ask more. After a beat, he merely assured "I'm coming," and the line fell dead. It didn't bother her.
You'll always be mine
I know deep inside
All that's done' s forgiven
Chuck watched Blair sleeping and everything in him ached.
Blair trusted him still. She had asked him- no, demanded was closer to the right definition- to stay with her until those white-collared doctors were done with her.
It amazed him that she had placed in his hands her secrets once again, considering how he had handled them lately. Why had not she turned to Serena for help? But of course, Blair wouldn't want someone so close to her saw her at her weakest.
She looked so fragile, worn out. Forlorn. Yet, even in her wretched state, he wanted her so badly than he could feel it in his bones. It made him sick at himself, but he had gotten used to the feeling by now. When he gave in and grazed her arm, the tactile contact didn't give him any comfort. It just gave him more of that soft, burning melancholy.
Did he… love her? It was been so long since he had experienced something he could artlessly define love; he didn't recall how it felt.
Maybe before his mother left him to fend himself by a man whose parenting skills equalled a street lamp's ones and an unending string of twenty-something nannies, he had felt differently. But his mother was been gone since forever, and the resentful familiarity his father inspired nowadays didn't qualify as comparison. His only other consistent relationship was Nate, the friend he was been able to guide so easily for years, before he sacrificed it all for her. He had liked that Nathaniel was someone he could influence deeply without feeling threatened from stark difference between their personalities.
He had appreciated Blair for entirely different reasons, lustful urges aside. In some ways this twisted, vindictive beauty was the creature most alike to himself he had met, but in other ways she was his polar opposite. The worst part was that he had no words to cage the feeling she had awoken inside him: he cut her and found himself bleeding, the more he chased her the more she seemed to elude him, yet it figured all his attempts of fighting her had only tied them tighter together. He didn't know how stop hurting her without sinking inside her and it scared him, because all what he wanted was making her better and he didn't know if to accomplish it he was supposed to stay here, or walk away without a backward glance.
Damn.
Things like that weren't supposed to happen to him. They were supposed to occur to other, emotionally dependent people while he watched by and had a laugh over it.
Whatever it took to deal with this, he wasn't equipped.
Perhaps it was karma. Chuck had never cared to understand why girls made it out a fuss when he discarded them after a mutually satisfactory encounter, nor had he ever laid wide awake tormenting himself over it if he got a bit too insistent on a potential bed-warmer at a party. Simply, he had gotten used to the notion he used females as much they used him, so their melodramatic scenes had hardly meant anything but hypocrisy in his eyes. But Blair… Blair had tricked him into wanting sex that meant more. She had shown him there was a humiliation involved when you were rejected and that it was lasting in a measure he wouldn't have believed possible without trying it first-hand. She had released him from the boredom which motivated the most of his actions by absorbing his attention so completely and unexpectedly than he hadn't the chance to build up a proper defence, all while teaching him he could be weak, fallible, lost and all what he thought it wasn't compatible with his nature .
Karma, indeed. What a big fucking cosmic joke.
I've been so lost since you've gone
Why not me before you?
Why did fate deceive me?
Everything turned out so wrong
Why did you leave me in silence?
The morning after, Blair awoke to find a large, warm hand holding on hers. She opened her eyes and blinked slowly as a confused recollection of yesterday's events caught up to her: she was pretty sure that her most recent memory involved Chuck Bass, the Ostroff Centre, and many unsympathetic-looking doctors. So what was this blonde boy doing here, sitting so close at her bed?
It was only when his gaze met hers she recognized him as Nate.
She experienced a pang of undefined, unexplained disappointment but she had barely the chance to wonder about it before her memory played with a quite vivid image of Chuck occupying that very same seat last night, before she fell asleep.
"Hi."
Nate murmured, appearing the very picture of painful awkwardness.
"Hi," she echoed, licking her dry lips. Here he was, her ex-boyfriend of many years staring at her small frame tucked under the white sheets of her too wide, too little bed. There was nowhere she could hide. Why would Chuck tell him? Blair hoped that bastard had not decided, in one of his spurs of pure stupidity, to text Gossip Girl about her recovery and his heroic rescue of her. With a Bass, you never knew for sure if your truces were real or imaginary.
Reluctantly, she shook herself from her reverie because Nate was speaking again, saying how happy he was she was okay and he sounded just so...broken.
He asked for her forgiveness and kissed her knuckles, his breath warm on her cool skin.
"I had no right to judge you, but I'll make it up to you," he promised, and his remorse was so transparent in his blue eyes that it embarrassed her even while it moved her.
Blair pulled her hand away gently, fighting the urge to squeeze her eyes shut against the utter perfection of the moment. From the outside in, she could suppose it appeared like a scene from a black and white classic romance.
Here were the words which would have once made her soar, the devotion which would once take her breath away.
But she wasn't that Blair Waldorf anymore and this Blair was too flawed, too broken inside to fit in a movie life… listening Nate' s promises, she just felt like she was on verge of drowning.
"If you truly want to help me, don't try being anything other than my friend."
She was proud her voice wasn't faltering. They were been around each other for so long than reaching out for Nathaniel Archibald had became like striving for her mother's esteem: deep down, she knew well she wouldn't have received from them quite what she needed but the compulsion to try was there nonetheless, instinctive and demanding.
Old Blair would jump at the chance to use this situation to bring Nate back to her side. New Blair saw the potential, felt the compulsion to use it but also saw the risk in it. Her self-esteem would never survive another crusade to re-establish their failed relationship.
Nate shook his head and even now, Blair could see a little bit of relief mingling with his sorrow.
"Isn't strange we ended up being so wrong for each other when we were basically raised to be a perfect fit?"
The lump in the Blair's throat grew larger. She had believed whatever they used to have been real at some point, and not a reflection of what they were trained to become. It had felt real to her, although she was ready to bet her companion couldn't swear the same.
"Not so much," she lied, wanting desperately to appear tougher than she actually felt; wanting desperately to not be the kind of girl who measured her self worth by a Prince Charming's love.
But for the first time she also wondered why she had appointed Nathaniel Archibald to that role: he was soft where she was hard, weak where she was unyielding. What once sounded like a perfect blend now smelled like an ideal recipe for disaster. When they had made love for the first time she was been so relieved that Nate' s touch was nice but not too nice, letting her to feel in charge of her body, allowing her to keep thinking while feeling. She had told herself it was a sign he was really the one for her, because the Chuck's caresses had at first made her feel like an eager, raging slut.
Maybe she was been defining Love wrong and it scared Blair, this idea that she was such a stranger to her heart while all this time, she had never doubted having her facts straight.
"Chuck dragged me here, you know."
Blair furthered no comment, but her eyes snapped up, suddenly anxious. It was still weird for Nate seeing his usually perfect, compulsively tidy ex so flustered, so shaken and shattered. For all his life, he had considered this girl indestructible, inflexible... beautiful in a remote way it belonged only to those things you were meant to own and admire but to not touch.
Watching her now, with dark circles around her eyes and pale lips, features tight at the first mention of another, he almost didn't recognize her.
"Not literally. He came to my home this morning. You know, to taunt me about how you were literally dying to catch my attention."
As Blair cringed, her fingers gripping the hem of her sheets, her mouth opening to interrupt him, Nate rushed on. "I decked him. I asked him how he could talk about you like that; like… like you were someone he barely knew. He answered he had more feelings for you in one hour than I ever did in twelve years."
She turned her face away, hating the discomfort she felt to have her reaction to those words watched so closely.
What did she feel? All what she knew it was that her anger at being humiliated by his ridiculous conjecture of her going to these extremes to have Nate had evaporated. It lingered only some sort of twisting sensation in the pit of her stomach. Not nausea, she would have recognized that. This was more of a faint, fuzzy… fluttering?
Oh, no.
God, no. Please not let these not be butterflies.
"The asshole was probably trying to make you feel worse"
"Come on, Blair. Remember, it's Chuck? He would sooner cut his tongue than admit something like that. Even for one of his mind-games. "
That much was true. Chuck had prided himself on his 'congenital heartless-ness' for years. Admitting feelings of any kind was degrading to him, and he wouldn't bring them up only to underline Nate's indifference toward her. Or would he?
"He feels guilty. Nothing more."
It was true, so why did acknowledging it hurt? Oh, it was so humiliating having Chuck to pity her… infuriating as well. How did he dare to assume she was so shallow to risk her life over anything remotely as trite and cliché as unrequited love?
Nate shook his head, unconvinced. "I think he is really into you-" he paused, transparently unsure whether continuing to pursue the matter or drop it. "Do you… um, return the feeling?"
He said it almost too quickly, like he needed having the doubt cleared once for all but he was afraid of losing his nerve.
No, absolutely not- Blair meant to snap. But all what rolled out of her mouth was:
"Would it be so wrong?"
Feeling her cheeks begin to heating, Blair looked down at her hands so uncharacteristically numb in her lap, frustrated with that stupid, unwanted sort of twisting in her stomach returning. She looked up again.
A ghost of smile on his lips, Nate surprised her by shaking his head.
"Nah. That Bass is a fungus, he grows on you."
"More like terminal cancer, actually. You remain blissfully unaware until it has spread and nothing can be done about it," Blair scoffed, reeling with the oddest impulse to laugh, but feeling too weary for it. She settled for smirking while her ex chuckled in her stead.
She refused wondering why she felt so relieved, all at once.
You gave up the fight
You left me behind
All that's done' s forgiven
It wasn't until two days after Blair saw Chuck again. He came to her house.
"What's wrong with you, Waldorf? I've basically served you the love of your life on a silver plate and you send it back without so much as a thank-you card. "
Chuck highly disliked feeling out of his element. He wasn't used to it and it left him considerably rattled stating how easily Blair managed to induce that mental state in him. He was been prepared to giving up on any hope of reviving his life-long connection with Nate when he had invited himself into the Archibald household to guilt-trip his former friend into scurrying back to Blair's skinny arms.
He had figured he owed her this much at least.
So how it was that Nate had not only decided Chuck Bass was not only worthy of public acknowledgement and conversation again, but also saw to hint him about visiting Blair Waldorf again himself?
Blair pursued her lips in a fake pout, amused in spite of herself. Chuck Bass, plots and ulterior motives: it felt like homecoming.
"I'm sure somewhere in your dirty little mind staging up that small reunion was a peace offering decent as any, but unfortunately for you, you shall work harder to get back on my good graces."
Chuck raised his eyebrows suggestively, but decided he wasn't in the mood for exploiting his usual repertoire of obscenities and sexual innuendo. Odd.
Instead he appeared even a bit irritated as he went on. "I don't get you. You wanted him, here he was. It's not like the Humphrey doll is a serious obstacle."
"That's exactly the point you carefully overlooked: I don't want Nate anymore. Jenny can keep him. And don't give me that look."
"Which look?"
"The one which suggests you arrogantly believe I can fool myself but not you."
"Now that I know I have a look like that, I'll make certain of using it more often."
He was smirking, not quite the same devilish smirk she was used to receive from him, because it lacked the usual ill-promising hint. This one sported an almost uncertain, more playful shade of mocking.
And it was one of those things which were never supposed to happen, Blair knew it, but her heart skipped a beat while she was smirking back.
"I'm amazed you pulled a selfless act for me, Bass. Remorseful much?"
"Let's not be ridiculous. I have no intention to apologize for bringing you down. You taunted me into it, so you have brought it on yourself."
"So what else it is? Because I know you are anything but a softie, and there must be a reason if you keep coming around."
She looked straight into his eyes, trying to convey she wouldn't have given up her questioning until he gave exactly the answer she wanted.
A tingle of excitement went up her spine as Chuck stared stonily back, and she realized she hadn't felt so alive in long time. He shrugged fluidly.
"Maybe I'm bored. Life was so much more eventful when you were on top of the food chain."
"How original of you," Blair snorted, rolling her eyes heavenward.
"There's a more eccentric alternative. I might simply enjoy the way it feels when I'm around you. For all I know, I might just be in love."
The derisive accent in his voice made a joke out of the admission, but his gaze remained suspiciously guarded, lacking of the mean glint he usually sported while he played around with words.
It irritated her, how she couldn't read him as clearly as she used to. When they were just friends, she didn't need worrying over interpreting his actions or reactions for what she wanted they meant and not what they truly were.
"With me?"
Admittedly, it wasn't the smartest reply. She regretted the utter stupidity of it straight away.
"Why, it wasn't what your precious ego craved to hear?"
Mild embarrassment and disgust splashed across his visage, reminding her of one certain unexpected revelation they had shared the night of her seventeen birthday.
"You are such a princess sometimes. Do you mean it or not?"
Chuck sneered, probably only to rattle her better. "Do you want me to mean it?"
"It doesn't matter what I-"
"Actually, the most of time, what you want is the only thing which matters. Too bad the world doesn't- "
Consumed by a raw desire to shut him up somehow, she slapped him hard, the sound echoing between them as her palm tingled and his cheek reddened. Disbelief and fury flashed in his dark eyes before he seethed at her:
"Ask me again why I don't feel bad for you, B."
"Because you are a lying, self-absorbed, self-serving, narcissistic pig?"
"It takes one to know another, sweetie. If you-"
He was completely unprepared for the searing sensation of her lips all over his, all possessive and demanding and desperate. Suddenly her hand was on his nape, forcefully pulling him forward and he wasn't wasting any time to return her hunger.
Chuck kissed her back hard: it was a kiss saturated with all the release they hadn't wanted or known how to remember.
When they broke apart, their breath ragged, Chuck looked shocked as he stepped back. She decided it was a befitting look on him and that she wouldn't mind seeing it more often. Even though it sort of made her feel queasy and light-headed.
"I might too," she murmured against his lips, leaning for another kiss. Chuck stopped her by taking her face between his hands. His palms felt electric against her cheeks and his dark, piercing eyes were raking over her features with such a heat than it was almost rage…
Nobody else had ever looked at her like this.
In past it had scared her, not knowing for certain if he was able to look at all his other nameless conquests with the same deceptive intensity. She didn't like the concept of getting dependent on an illusion.
Blair was just starting to shiver, partly out of desire, partly out of fear he would launch in another repeat of that horrid Arabians-versus-Virgins speech, but then he tilted her head slightly aside, very gently, and her eyelids were fluttering shut as she felt his mouth burning a trail of lingering, feather-light kisses from her earlobe to her throat.
There were terrific benefits in keeping a bad boy around, after all…
And in the end, what did it matter what was better or what was right, what could last longer? She wanted him.
You'll always be mine
I know deep inside
All that's done' s forgiven