.denial.
rating: T
pairings: CB
status: in progress
length: short multi-parter
author: nat.kat
summary: Blair only sees what fits into her movie, not what's the truth. What happens when Chuck wants her back? She denies it.
note: Takes place about a week after a Thin Line.
.Prologue.
Blair smiled serenely at the next wannabe who shot her a glare. It was getting old. Seriously, how could they shoot Blair glares she perfected? Amateurs, all of them.
She looks wistfully at her coveted spots on the Met, now crawling with sluts she used to call friends.
She knew who her real friend was, S, who was dutifully sitting by her side.
She supported her, even though Blair liked to pretend that she didn't need her help.
The truth was Blair needed all the real friends she could get.
She laughs without emotion because S' just said something funny. She can't even remember what it was.
--
Chuck watches Blair smirk, he watches her laugh, he watches her tuck a stray brunette curl around her ear.
He wants to be with her now, holding her.
He told her she was a used horse, how unwise. It wasn't him speaking, no it was the wall around his heart. She broke it down, the wall he had deemed impenetrable.
This was why he never wanted to fall in love with her. She would just use him, run to dear ol' Nate, and when Nate dumped her sorry ass, she ran back to him.
If she ran back to him tail between her legs, off her high horse, he might actually have comforted her.
But no, she made him a second choice, last resort. When everyone was gone she was still trying to stay on her impossibly high pedestal. She tried to use him, again.
As much as he would've liked to walk over and hug her, he refrains. He refrains because he knows that she'll just hurt him again.
Damn it, he sounds like a woman.
--
The rest of the day passed smoothly for Blair, Serena was by her side, glaring at anyone who tried to come near her.
It was almost like having an overprotective blonde puppy.
She smirks at everyone, because she's still Queen B and they know it.
It's just a matter of time before she regains her throne.
Walking outside, she notices the familiar walk of Chuck Bass, as he strides out the gates.
She unconsciously quickens her pace, before she orders herself to stop, to act naturally.
He's stopped outside the gates, smoking a cigarette now, and waiting for his limo.
She wants to fall into his arms again, but decides that she'd rather go ride a horse. He doesn't want her, a used horse. So she walks past him, nose in the air. Okay, maybe she was overdoing it a little with the sniff.
--
He doesn't know what form of intelligence has struck him, but he can't help but call her name as she walks past with her nose in the air.
"Waldorf"
She turns, hiding the hope in her face, but not in her eyes.
"What?" Her tone is cold, and brings him out of his fantasy, in which Blair actually forgives him.
"Still haven't run back to Nate?"
He knows his words will cut her deep, and this is what he wants. He wants to inflict all the pain he has felt on her. All the pain she caused, that he tried to bury deep down, trying to do the same with the damned butterflies. Deep down, he knows he doesn't want to do this, but it's a reflexive action, one he perfected when Misty left.
She turns around fully, and walks to him slowly, bringing her palm to his face.
He turns away in shock, and notices the bright tears in her eyes.
"No, I'm Blair Waldorf. Waldorfs do not run, to people, nor are they horses. In fact, I believe they're above self-absorbed asses too."
She turns away, hiding her tears as she stalks in the opposite direction of the penthouse.
She wants him back, but she won't ever admit that.
--
Throwing back another one of his famous scotches, he sighs to himself. Since when did he get so worked up over one woman?
Well, Blair was never just one woman.
She was his opposite, his other half and he honestly doesn't know what he was talking about when he said he didn't want her.
She couldn't believe it. She shouldn't believe it.
Hell, he didn't believe it.
Because Chuck was always saying things that he didn't believe. That little wall he had built around his heart was crumbling under the brute force of Blair Waldorf.
And now he's wondering, reflecting, about that fateful night with Blair.
Her face emotionless as ever, she walks out of the bar slowly, carefully, he stares straight ahead, at the mirror behind the bar. Yet a mirror usually reflects things, and he is overcome by a need to protect her as he catches sight of her face as she steps out the door.
Blair Waldorf doesn't cry.
Usually.
--
Nate grunts as he makes his way into Central Park, memories of him and Chuck lighting up before school.
He still takes a hit every morning.
Old habits do die hard, apparently.
Nate's never actually been as ignorant as others seemed to think the pretty boy was he was actually quite aware of things. Things like the fact that when he was with Chuck and Blair, it always made him feel like the third wheel, even if Chuck was the third wheel in the most literal sense.
Blair and Chuck always had a, what was that word? He searches through his sluggish brain, but can only come up with chemistry.
But they couldn't have chemistry, not when Blair was still with him. Okay, so maybe that was the pot calling the kettle black, but Blair was always Blair. She was pristine and perfect, and made sure that he never doubted her affections for him.
Still, when Chuck came along, the two seemed to talk more than Nate and Blair. And it wasn't just talking with the two of them; no it was some sort of twisted He Said, She Said episode.
And he did notice that both of them seemed more alive than well, anytime else. Blair's hands would be waving, her eyes sparkling, her lips twisted into a smirk.
Chuck, well, he still wore his smirk, but he seemed a bit brighter, more vibrant.
They would go on, leaving Nate's mind reeling as he tried to keep up with the two of them. When he finally got the gist of the conversation, he would only put his foot in his mouth, so to say.
He'd try to say something smart, something witty, and it would come out like a small child had crafted it.
Then Blair would look at him, disapproving, with a slight turn down of her lips.
Chuck would looks at him with a look that clearly said, haven't I taught you?
After a moment or two, they would share a look that Nate had yet to understand, and gaily continue.
Yet Nate still trusted Chuck with Blair. He knew that Chuck respected Blair, and she was the one person he would not try to, as Chuck shamelessly put it, love 'em and leave 'em. Not only was Blair Nate's girl, but she was one of Chuck's real friends.
So when The Captain whisked Nate off to another sailing trip, or his parents took him to some exclusive resort (only to leave him to his own devices as his mother spent her time in the spa, his dad at the golf club) Nate always instructed Chuck to take care of Blair.
And he always came home to a smiling Blair, who always gave him a slightly under enthusiastic peck on the cheek. He always noticed it, yet he never acknowledged it.
Because he was more like Blair than anyone thought, and he preferred living in daydreams instead of acknowledging things, because acknowledging things would make them real.
So he just told himself that she was probably just a little tired, or hadn't eaten yet.
Chuck was also the first to know about Harold Waldorf's infidelity.
Blair had called him for comfort, and when Chuck was asked by Nate the next day if he knew where Blair was, Chuck gave him a funny look and said, "Her father left her and her mom last night"
With a wave, Chuck had ambled away, leaving Nate to wonder why Chuck had known before him.
He knew now.
Deep thinking, Nate thought, as he took another hit, and with pot, no less.
You know what they say, pot manipulates the brain in ways unimaginable.
--
A mind clouded with alcohol, Chuck Bass has come up with a startling conclusion.
He actually loved Blair Waldorf.
He loved her, he wanted to be with her, he wanted to..
Ugh, what was that about sounding like a woman again?
The butterflies he had thought he killed were, well, still alive and fluttering around in the depths of his stomach.
This was not the normal Chuck Bass.
He knew how having a girlfriend had changed some guys he knew. Carter, Matt, to name a few.
He never thought himself to be one of them.
He was the one who took them, fucked them, then threw them out.
He was living life on the edge, on the precipice of a mountain.
Chuck Bass used to love the life of parties, drinking, girls, the list could go on.
Chuck Bass used to think of Blair Waldorf as a friend.
He knows that Blair was always more than a friend, she was special, she was innocent.
He always adored the fact that Blair was actually on the same level of intellect as him, unlike the many others before her. Blair was one who could decipher his words, manipulate a response of her own, and always seemed to have a slight upper hand in their feverish, yet playful, arguments.
Putting his head in his hands, he comes to the conclusion that he would do anything to get her back.
Perhaps if he wasn't in such an alcohol induced state he probably would have had some sense of reason.
But then again, he always lived recklessly, didn't he?
Dealing 411 on his phone, he got the number of a well-known Manhattan florist.
"I'd like to send flowers to a Blair Waldorf, I believe she is a former customer" Of course Blair was a former customer, she practically lived to order flowers.
"Yes, may I ask what flowers?"
"Whatever her last order was"
The bartender, who was refilling his scotch, winked at him.
"Nice," he noted.
Chuck nodded absently, and gave his credit card information to the clerk.
"Would you like to put anything on the card, Mr.Bass?"
"Just put 'Love, comma, Chuck,' on the card"
Nice.
--
Blair sighs to herself, sitting curled up on her bed she was the epitome of a daddy's little girl. Except daddy's little girl didn't sleep with the Chuck Basses of the world.
She really wasn't daddy's little girl anymore, was she?
Her thoughts are interrupted when she hears the almost inaudible ding! of the elevator.
Sighing again, because she knows that no one will be visiting her in her current state (of social ruin) and she misses the legions that used to grace her room.
Blair is even more surprised when Dorota calls her name,
"Ms. Blair, you have a package!"
A package? Who the hell would send her a package?
Making her way to the marble foyer, she can only see the rather large bouquet of white lilies, and violets. It was the centerpiece she had chosen for her mother's last dinner party.
Moving around the bouquet she notices the small, hand lettered, green and yellow card.
Love, Chuck.
AN: I don't normally put AN's in my stories, but this was an exception. The part with Chuck sending flowers to Blair is taken from 'You're the one That I Want', a gossip girl book. In the book 'Chuck' is replaced with 'Nate', who sends flowers to Blair's mom, who is in the hospital after giving birth to Yale, Blair's baby sister in the books.
Kisses,
Nat.