A.N. WARNING!!!! THIS IS EXTREMELY ANGSTY! I took the song You Found Me by The Fray and completely disregarded all episodes after 2.13, Oh Brother Where Bart Thou? Please enjoy! And don't be mad at me if you are totally depressed by it! Also, I'm sorry it took me so long to update! The site wouldn't let me log on for a while (others had this problem, I'm sure,) and my mom made a new rule. "No updating your fanfiction account during the week." Sorry! Here is the update now, though!
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I found God on the corner of 1st and Amistad
Where the West was all but won
All alone, smoking his last cigarette
I said, "Where've you been?" He said, "Ask anything."
The last time she saw him before he ran off to Beijing was on her way to Serena's. She hadn't seen him in over a month, and had dutifully, though not without extreme self-restraint, listened to what he had asked of her in the note he had left beside her pillow. She hadn't gone looking for him, and it had nearly killed her. A flash of lavender caught her eye, and she whipped around quickly, nearly being run over by various pedestrians. She could no longer see through the thick throng of people clogging the sidewalk, but she knew that shade of purple anywhere. It was the exact shade in Chuck's favorite shirt. (Blair was pretty sure it was his favorite shirt not only because of how good it looked, but because his father detested it. Then again, he always had wanted to be accepted by his father, so maybe not.)
She sprinted across the street, barely avoiding becoming road kill beneath the tires of agitated taxis and buses. This time when that lavender shirt came into view she was sure it was Chuck. She arrived at the other side of the street out of breath. Hurrying over to where she'd seen him, she felt her heart plummet. The only thing there was the scent of his cologne mixing fragrantly with the distinct odor of marijuana, and the smoldering remains of a smoke on the concrete below.
Where were you, when everything was falling apart.
All my days were spent by the telephone that never rang
And all I needed was a call that never came
To the corner of 1st and Amistad
When she was finally able to track him to the hotel where his was staying in Beijing (thanks to Andrew Tyler) she booked a private flight immediately and took off. As soon as the plane touched down, she was up and running, getting into a waiting vehicle and giving the driver, who thankfully spoke English, anxious directions. She decided not to call him. If she did, she figured, he would run again to avoid being caught. When the car made it to the hotel, she tossed too much money over the seat back and sprinted up to the door and inside. All she had to say to the man at the front desk was the name of the man she was looking for, and he became visibly worried. Quickly, he ushered her down a hall and motioned to a door. She burst in and nearly broke down at the sight before her.
Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor, surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late, you found me, you found me.
"Chuck?" she whispered hesitantly, shuffling forward to reach him. He was sprawled out in the middle of the floor, surrounded by various empty alcohol bottles and burn holes, presumably from the cigarette butts littering the floor. His chest was moving up and down, and she let out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. His hair was filthy and disheveled, as were his clothes. He was still in the purple shirt she had seen him in over two weeks ago. Even in his inebriated slumber his face didn't relax, he wasn't at peace. Blair hesitantly reached down and stroked his cheek tenderly. His expression relaxed slightly which made Blair suddenly angry. How dare he take comfort in her company when he had been depriving her of his company for over a month! Her palm stung when it connected with his face, and he groaned loudly, eye lids fluttering.
"Ouch! Shoot!" she yelped, clutching her burning hand to her side protectively. "Ow, ow, ow!"
"Blair?" Chuck's voice was panicked, worried even. Blair felt her heart warm to the sound of his voice, even as scratchy and emotionless as it was. She was pleased that she had been able to bring any kind of emotion into his voice, even if it meant she had to be hurt to do it.
"Chuck, are you…" she was interrupted when he suddenly turned his head and vomited all over the carpet. A few colorful words slipped from between his bile coated lips before he lurched and threw up again. Blair hurried to turn his head, worried that he would choke.
"Chuck," she said softly, the tenderness in her voice surprising them both, "I'm going to help you up and to the bathroom. Okay?" He nodded mutely, helping as much as he could when she pulled him from the ground. Kicking off her shoes, Blair wrapped both arms around Chuck tightly, trying not to gag at the smell that permeated the air around him.
They had to stop once when Chuck began to gag, and once again spewed projectile vomit, getting a little of it on Blair. She sucked in her breath quickly, fighting back nausea as the slimly bile slid down her leg.
"'M sorry," he mumbled, falling forward suddenly. Somehow, Blair managed to catch him, nearly falling herself. She felt his warm hand at her leg, and glanced down to glare at him for making a pass on her in the state he was in. What she saw instead had a lone tear sliding down her cheek. Chuck had wiped his own vomit off her leg with his hand, and wiped it on his pant leg. Righting himself, he looked at her apologetically. Chuck's gaze reminded Blair of a lost child's, and it took all she had not to start sobbing at what he'd become, what he'd been reduced to.
"Thank you," she whispered, her voice cracking with barely suppressed emotion.
They finally made it into the bathroom where Blair helped him remove his clothes and step into the shower. Dropping her own clothing beside his, she stepped in behind him, holding tightly to his arm to hold him steady. She quickly gave up on keeping him standing, and lowered him so he was seated below the spray of the hot water. Methodically, she washed and rinsed his hair three times for good measure, and rubbed him down with a soapy wash cloth, being sure to remove all of the left-over bile.
But in the end everyone ends up alone
Losing her, the only one who's ever known
Who I am, who I'm not and who I wanna to be
No way to know how long she will be next to me
She had just finished towel drying and dressing them both when he suddenly asked,
"Why didn't you just leave me?" Blair sighed, helping him lay down in the hotel bed and pulling the sheets up to his chin. He turned to his side laboriously, pulling his hands up to rest beside his face as would a young child. She bit her lip nervously. Should she tell him the truth? That she couldn't leave him alone because he was a part of her, and she loved him. She couldn't allow herself to make herself so vulnerable again, or at least not until Chuck did first. Instead, she went for the offensive.
"Why are you killing yourself?" she shot back, regretting the words even as they left her mouth.
"Because," he said loudly, his voice becoming rough with agitation. Blair busied herself with cleaning up the mess he'd made, even the putrid pool of stomach bile that was quickly soaking into the carpet. "It's better that way. I won't be a burden to you, or anyone else." It didn't escape Blair's notice that he had put her in a different category as "anyone else." That he thought that lowly of himself made her feel sick, and she quickly deposited the cigarette butts she had been collecting in a garbage can and went over to the bed. She lay atop the covers and turned to face Chuck, lacing her fingers with his.
He seemed to stiffen at the sudden contact, and Blair couldn't help the sharp pain the laced through her at his apparent rejection. She knew it was unreasonable, but she couldn't control her heart's reactions to Chuck's actions.
"That makes no sense," she whispered softly, staring into his eyes. They weren't void of emotion as they had been the few time's she'd seen him after her father's death, but were instead filled with a sadness much too old for someone of his seventeen years. "It would be worse for me and everyone else if you were gone," she promised, squeezing his hand tighter. He finally relaxed his muscles, accepting this intimate gesture. He shook his head in denial, and she brought her other hand up to help her other engulf his hand fiercely. "I would die if you did!" she hissed.
"No," he whimpered, turning his face into the pillow. His voice was muffled when he spoke again. "You wouldn't die!" Blair released her hold on his hand and reached up to cradle his face in her hands, coaxing it up so that he had no choice but to look at her.
"I wouldn't want to live without you," she explained slowly, quietly, " so I would make sure I didn't have to." As the meaning of her words dawned on him, he pulled free of her hands violently, shaking his head wildly.
"No! Get out! I never want to see you again! I don't want you here, and I never will!" She didn't know what had brought on his sudden change of emotion, but his words hurt worse than any criticism or insult she'd received from her mother, Serena, Nate, or anyone else ever had. She quickly rose and stormed over to the door, tears streaming down her face, and left without another glance. She didn't realize she had left her shoes until she was outside, the rough concrete biting into her delicate heels.
She couldn't quite bring herself to care.
Three weeks of mental self-torture later, Blair finally couldn't stop herself from checking up on Chuck any longer. She sat on her bed, picking at her comforter nervously while the phone rang. He picked it up on the third ring.
"Chuck." It was a statement colored in relief and pain. There was silence from the other end for a while, and Blair almost hung up.
"Why didn't you seek me out sooner? Before I left the city?" His voice was faint, and the amount of shaking it did scared her.
Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor, surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late, you found me, you found me.
"You told me not to," she whispered, knowing even as she said it that it wasn't the only reason. Not even close. She had been afraid of what she would find when she saw Chuck, and it had been that fear that kept her from searching for him.
"You never listened to me before," he whispered, the words separated by heavy pants. The line went dead before she could respond. Fear gripped at her heart as arranged to return to Beijing immediately. After a little bit of pleading and a lot of bribing she had another private flight scheduled to take off in two hours.
The early morning, the city breaks
And I've been calling for years and years and years
And you never left me no messages
You never sent me no letters
You got some kind of nerve taking all I want
The memory of how she found Chuck, of how she might find Chuck haunted Blair the whole flight. Once again, she hurried to the hotel, this time bypassing the man at the front desk, the door to Chuck's room burned in her mind.
Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor, Where were you? Where were you?
"Oh my god," she choked, throwing her hand over her mouth. Broken sobs flooded from her chest, filling the room as she rushed to his side. He was lying face down in his own blood, unlabeled pill and alcohol bottles laying around him like a mural.
"Chuck!" Her voice was a shriek as she fell to her knees and flipped the body of the man she loved, soaking her dress in blood. His vacant eyes stared at the ceiling, not flooded in pain for the first time in a long time. His lips were parted slightly, a pale blue color. Blair placed her hand over his mouth, under his nose, on his chest, pleading for a sign that he was alive.
There were none.
Why had she waited so long to go to him? She sobbed his name, a broken mantra as she tried to force air into his unresponsive body. It was already beginning to cool and stiffen. She pulled him up so he was sitting, and pulled his limp form to her. An agonized scream split the air, telling a story; the story of two young people in love, both tortured by their own demons. As a loud bang overtook the scream abruptly, the silence that remained continuing the story in a way that the scream could not. The story ended when the woman mimicked her lover, embedding a bullet deep within her chest. The silence told of mingling blood, and a tragic, modern day Romeo and Juliet ending.
The silence was absolute, the story finished.
Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor, surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late, you found me, you found me.
Why'd you have to wait, to find me, to find me?
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A.N. I know this is angsty, and I'm sorry! I heard this song on the radio, and I decided to make something out of it. Please don't hate me! I'm in the middle of a fluffy one shot right now that will make up for this highly upsetting ending! I wasn't going to kill Blair, but I couldn't seem to leave her in the world without Chuck. It just didn't work, you know? Anyways, I promise to get my fluff up ASAP!!!!! Sorry!
-Brenna