A/N: I got the idea for writing this from a song that was heard on Gossip Girl last night, Runaway by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I knew what I wanted it to be, and it just morphed into this angsty beast that I now love. So, I recommend trying to listen to that song...It just helped me a lot to write this and set the mood that I wanted in the story and that I hope peaked through.
This is unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own and I take full responsibility...I'm obviously not perfect :P.
P.S.: I do not own Runaway, nor do I own Gossip Girl or any inclination towards it. Wait, I own the inclination, just not what I'm inclining towards ;).
Also...Here is a little snippit of Runaway just to set a mood if people were not able to listen to the song, hah.
I was feeling sad
Can't help looking back
Highways flew by
Run, run, run away
No sense of time
Like you to stay
Want to keep you inside
Run, Hide, Don't Look Back
He couldn't help but want to remember. The memories were all he had to hold onto. She never talked to him anymore, they never had the same banter as before. It was hell, his life was hell. Everything had been fucked up, and it was all on him. He was a shit of a person, so much less than Nate. Less than his father; fuck if he wasn't less than the devil himself.
Chuck Bass was truly a maniacal bastard whom everyone despised. It would have been best if he'd learned that early on, but being his egotistical and asinine self had prevented that.
And so he went down memory lane. He exiled himself from the entire world...Never spoke to a soul. Food was periodically sent up, but rarely eaten. Liquor was sent up more regularly than food, and gulped down as if it were the medicine that kept him alive.
His clothing of choice had been a silken robe for nearly seven months straight. It had hardly ever been washed – much like its owner – and smelled rancid with twinges of cigarette smoke and expensive scotch.
Never was there a knock at the door; never was there a soul that gave a rat's ass. Not once had there been a care package with a note tied to it saying 'We're worried, come back Chuck'. No one cared, as always. Chuck Bass was a stereotype, easily replaced. Obviously, his so-called "friends" had found that out and taken advantage of their new knowledge.
So he relied on memories of her. The memories, the dreams, those were what kept him alive. He had sworn once, oh so long ago, that he would not ever go there again. It caused too much pain and regret and foolish feelings when she did come back. Now he was sure she wouldn't come back, though. Blair was never coming back. She hated him; everyone hated him.
Then again, since when could they feel? They hadn't been able to feel a thing for five and a half years.
And since when did he – the Basstard, himself – care enough to drink into oblivion and live in the past? The old Chuck would have ignored the impending thorn in his side and just moved on.
Friends didn't matter to him.
But they mattered to him.
The little boy that was stuck inside of him. The little adolescent teenager that was naïve enough to believe that dreams were real. That, if you concentrated long enough, the bad things would go away. How stupid of him. How stupid of the people who had planted that seed in him so long ago. Had they known how much it would affect him, farther down the road?
It was like everything whirred when he went into the spells of memories. The room swirled and the carpet flew by him. He didn't look back – he never chanced a glance behind him – as he took the journey back; as he traveled back through his life. The good times.
When they had been here. With him.
"Chuck!" she squealed with delight as he swung her around. It sure as hell wasn't anything like Chuck Bass, but who cared, anyway? This was him now. She changed him; when he was with her...he was so different. And he loved how he felt.
She filled him to the highest brim with joy; Blair gave him a high that he had never been able to reach with any drug known to man. With her in the room, he could breathe. He could live, he could speak his mind without fright, without knowing he would feel instant and strong regret.
This girl understood him. Sure, she hadn't known him as long as his own father, but she still knew him so well. They were the same; they were synchronized as one, it made him feel powerful to be with her, even in ways that were not physical.
Her body was like a drug to him. That was the most common thing for a boy his age to say about a girl, but he strongly felt that he was the only one who truly meant it.
Chuck knew what it felt like to not want to be away from one person. He knew what people meant when they said that it hurt to be taken away from their significant other. The fact that it was painful to be ignored by her was also a new sensation for the twenty-year-old billionaire. Even when she simply did not hear him, he still felt an indescribably painful jab right in the middle of his heart.
But now, things were good. He was happy. And it made him wonder how long it would all last. It made him think about the last time things had started to get nice and comfortable between himself and another person.
And where that person had ended up.
He shook himself out the memory, feeling the room jolt and his eyes bulge as bile rose in his throat. The action was secondary – normal – for him now. It was just like breathing, drinking water. Puking was so natural for the young man that he never gave a second look at the gross and unnerving amount of yellow chunkiness that always ended up in the ever-present bin that lay next to him.
Wiping his dirty – in more ways than one – mouth on the back of his hand, he turned to stare out the window from his place on the hotel bed. As he looked at the swaying pine trees, he let out what should have resembling a sigh. The noise, however, came out as a sob. A pathetic little whimper from a weak being who didn't know any better.
He was such a baby. A pansy, if you will. Only small infants sobbed from sadness and regret. He was a goddamn man, a Bass man. Bass men did not cry, they never showed any emotion save for superiority.
But Chuck...he was a little boy. He didn't care about men. He was a weakling, a measly child who was wimpy and feeble. That was how he had been since...since...
And then it hit him. The most terrible of all. He didn't know whether he had fallen asleep or not, and he did not give a fuck. He would give anything to rid of this terrible monstrosity. This nuisance that never ceased. He just wanted to wake up from the dream, to kill himself it was just a flashback.
But then again, he deserved it, didn't he?
"Guys? What the hell?" he yelled through the darkness.
Oh, it was most definitely real. He was there...he was back. It was real, and there, and he was...Fuck.
"Where are you?" he cried out, half in frustration, half in this sweeping feeling of guilt that was unexplainable. Why would he feel guilty? They were right...
No. This was the bad part. It was the section of the horror film where everyone was screaming to stop the movie and the entire audience was on the edge of their seats. If only they'd been living the fucking movie.
Yes, they were right there! His friends...they were just within reach. It looked like someone had tried to play some kind of cruel joke on him...as well as Serena, Blair, and Nate. There was ketchup...or some other form of fake blood...on them. All over them. It was unreal. It couldn't be authentic. This was just some acidic type of humor that was meant to harm all who experienced it.
You dumbass! He yelled inside of his mind. How could you believe such idiotic things?! If you had thought of the worst to begin with...
His thoughts were not coherent. They were jumbled, in shambles; they were confused and scared. All three of them...they were...no, they just couldn't be.
He jolted again, this time with violent and fearsome sobs racking his entire muscular body. He never could relive that memory completely...it hurt, it scolded something deep inside of him, so deep that he wasn't sure he could fathom its reality or truth. One day, he would force himself to live it all the way through.
It was part of the life he had chosen those seven years ago. Part of the agonizing punishment and terrorizing visions he had picked.
It was a dream this time...he knew it. He knew he was asleep. This was too good to be a real happening that had been thrown on him a long time ago. It was a thought-up scenario by his unconscious.
Then, if it was a dream, why was he thinking about its dream-like qualities? Oh, who gives a shit! Something within him bellowed deeply, making his soul rumble and his heart tremble with fright and remorse.
She was so beautiful in the gown. Her hair was pulled back; it was unlike he had ever expected on a day like today. Yet, it still did nothing short of impressing him immensely.
Her eyes sparkled with mischief and knowing. Her lips twitched in anticipation and wanting. He licked his own, for he knew what was to come.
The enchantress's lips found his, somewhere in the suddenly dark and blank room. They tasted of honey and sugar, the most toxic combination, but also the most obsessive. They caressed and bit and licked the wounds that the bites had created. He tasted something new each time their lips met in a loving peck.
Cherries...Nectar...Cinnamon. Cherries overpowered all the rest, though. They were juicy and always ripe, and they weren't even real fruit.
Her...B-...The name would not come to him, it refused to. Her lips...they were so wonderfully magical and talented. The bright red plumps of skill and superiority...they caused him to become unable to form thoughts. He couldn't think, he couldn't speak.
Then they were drawn away from him. They were amazingly fascinating and were a new and different thing for Chuck to explore. Still, something, someone, drew them away from him. They were yanked out from under his own curious mouth and he yelped at the instantaneous loss and feeling of abandonment.
She was a shadow now, no longer real. The illusion floated away from him, the hand of the ghost beckoning. He ran – he sprinted, galloped, tried to get leverage on anything and everything to cause his speed to increase – towards her. There was something holding him back. The siren was always just mere centimeters from his reach.
She always would be.
All because of him.
A/N: Good god...I'm so sorry. I must be depressing you, hah. I hope the end made sense. You see...it wasn't in italics anymore because he'd woken up. And it was sort of a cliffhanger type thing...sorta-ish, heh. Please, tell me your thoughts.