Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl or anything relating to it except my writing.
A/N: Random AU drabble.
If there was one thing Blair hated most in the world, it was being kept to wait. One would think that her name alone would suffice in holding the attention of not only one worker but all of them, and it wasn't as though she had lost any of her edge in becoming a grown woman. If anything, it had only heightened her acute sense of self-importance, and not out of conceit either. She was Blair Waldorf. Any argument could be immediately discarded as invalid as far as she or anyone else were to be concerned in the matter.
And yet, here she sat, just about ready to stand and pace the tiled floor in her clear annoyance. Slim eyebrows drawn in upset, Blair did just this and approached the woman at the front of desk.
"Hello," Blair began, "I have been waiting for nearly 15 minutes. This is unacceptable, frankly, when considered that I've been dedicating my unwavering loyalty to this and this store only for my jewelry for five ye–"
"I am aware, Miss Waldorf, and I am very sorry," the woman before her assured Blair, "but our workers are currently with another customer–"
"And when did I become less important than just another–?"
In that moment, as though time had come to a screeching, horrifying halt, from behind the curtain to the main show room appeared Mr. Charles Bartholomew Bass and some pretty thing on his arm. He was looking at her with the largest of smiles on his lips, and she returned it with her own, exposing rows of teeth of a dazzling (and sickening, Blair managed to think to herself) white.
"Chuck."
Pausing in his laughter with the other woman Chuck glanced at the speaker of his name, his easygoing grin sliding into a sort of shocked o.
"Blair?" he said, his forehead and eyebrows creasing to show his confusion. Why is my name a question? wondered Blair. It isn't as though he could forget or mistake me for someone else; no one dresses this well if they aren't Blair fucking Cornelia Waldorf.
"In the flesh. What're you doing here, Bass?" The old form of address slipped easily from her tongue, but she regretted it immediately upon his further withdrawn expression. It matched her tone to a T.
"I was… Isabella and I were perusing the jewels, checking around for something she might like." Isabelle giggled–giggled–and turned 50 Shades of Red, her pretty indigo gaze falling momentarily to the floor before looking back to Chuck and tucking a strand of her dark hair behind one ear. "We haven't had any luck so far," Chuck went on, "but…"
"Maybe you'll find something elsewhere," supplied Blair with a sweet and poisonous smile of her own. If her head tilted, she had no control over it. Chuck visibly swallowed, nodding. "Perhaps. Were you here for something in particular yourself?"
"Aren't I always?" Nice. "My mother and Cyrus have their wedding anniversary coming up and I've only now realized that I have no suitable gift for either her or him. I plan to get her a new bracelet… here."
"How kind of you," Chuck said, his tone sounding stiff, if verging on the plains of awkward.
"Thank you." They remained still for another few seconds before Blair pasted another fake smile upon her face and clutched her smooth cream hand bag in front of her, praying that her white knuckles weren't too noticeable against it. Clearing her throat she added, "Now, if you'll… excuse me."
As she went to move past both Chuck and his girl, Blair's arm was taken into an all too familiar grasp. He looked at her, his eyes imploring. "It was good to see you, Blair."
Blair felt something in her tighten, but she pressed it away and nodded as if her neck were made of stone. "Same to you. Goodbye, Chuck."