Behold Man: The lengths people will go to... A series exploring the darker sides of Man and the secrets revealed by our persistent pair.
Author's note: Hope you guys enjoy this. It's different from my usual GG undertakings but not so unfamiliar to me since I've written in this genre before. This is part of my Behold Man series which will explore and reveal the dark sides of Man. I've decided to post each story separately because the chapters would be quite long otherwise and I'm not quite sure you guys would like that. Anyway. Let me know what you think, lovelies!
THOSE OLD SCHOOL DAYS
Run, run, run away. No sense of time.
Want you to stay. Want to keep you inside.
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Runaway
"But can you say it smiling?"
The dream exploded, drenching Blair with an acute sense of loss that shook her awake. Heart pounding its way out of her throat, she tore the eye mask from her eyes and recoiled against the warm sunrays that penetrated her curtains.
New day in a new apartment in a new town. Her dream finally come true. She could hardly believe it. She'd made it! Yale was hers to impress. Yet as she studied the feeling that stretched triumphantly in her chest, she realised… the success wasn't as sweet as she'd anticipated.
Blair sat up gingerly, squinting to accustom her eyes to the pale light filtering inside the as-yet spartan apartment. Oh, maybe she was over-analysing the whole situation. Here she was, ready to take the school that had snubbed her two years ago. She should feel positively self-satisfied.
NYU had been… painful and humiliating at first, but once she'd sucked it up she'd actually focused on the one thing that truly mattered: school. Goodbye, people who cared that she came from the Upper East Side. Surprising. Liberating. Eye-opening. And then she'd applied again to Yale because, yes, despite not hating the non-Ivy League university anymore, she'd decided to be… proud, and not let a past rejection stop her from reaching for her goal. Hello, Connecticut. Reform was in, apparently.
As if on cue, her phone's alarm went off.
"Here we go," Blair grunted to herself mid-unladylike yawn.
#
Blair navigated the buildings and halls easily, schedule and books in hand. She'd visited the campus so often that she practically knew the layout like the back of her hand. Still, she kept eyeing the bit of printed paper with her carefully planned schedule every few seconds every time she passed a classroom. Excitement and "oh how have you beens" gushed out around her, and yet she didn't care to look for familiar faces – the one she was sure to find somewhere on the campus. Inconspicuous, her new middle name. Considering her old one – Scheming Meddler – had gotten her a swift boot out of this very institution in the first place… Inconspicuous she would be for as long as humanly possible.
"332," she finally breathed to herself, smiling as she pushed past sudents idling around the doorway. "Excuse me, out of the way."
Quietly, she sat at a desk, layout her notebook and newly-purchased literature textbook on top, and watching a handful of other students – from freshmen to slightly more understated seniors – walk in and settle themselves around the auditorium. A group of boys sat near her and promptly began discussing the latest soccer game results. Giggling girls settled next to them –
"Blair Waldorf?"
Blair frowned, swivelling in her seat, only to gape in shock at the Asian beauty in front of her. Effing incongruous was the better term. "Nelly Yuki?"
#
The initial shock wearing off, Nelly finally smiled, though her eyes strayed to find more students arriving in the classroom. She licked her lips. "Blair," she said again, her voice raising the slightest. "You transferred?"
Blair nodded wordlessly as she again raked Nelly's new style. Her jet black hair had been cut short into a stylish blob, sweeping bangs longer in the front and framing an expertly made-up face in shades of green and pink. The whole only complimented her pale green and white print dress – Yves St. Laurent's latest – and Blair simply… boggled at sight of the small frameless designer sunglasses perched on top of her head. Eye surgery much?
Nelly bristled under the open scrutiny. "Isn't this… pleasant."
A girl called out to her suddenly. "Nelly! What are you doing, bitch? We saved you a seat."
Nelly held up an imperious French manicured finger to the tittering blonde, then turned back to Blair. "Listen," she said suddenly with a thin cocked eyebrow, "there's a party tonight at my sorority house to welcome the new school year." She fished through her little leather purse, producing a colour flyer bearing the name Sigma Psi Zeta. "Seeing as you just got here, you might as well make some new friends."
Blair accepted the sheet hesitantly. "Thanks."
Nelly shrugged easily, another smile in place though Blair could see it was… strained. "Anything for an old… school friend." Then she started up the steps toward her pack of colourful friends just as an old harried professor walked in. "I'll see you tonight, Blair."
Blair had the distinct impression she'd entered a new dimension where Nelly Yuki was social royalty while she was a dimmer shadow of the queen she used to be, and a stranger, to boot. She stared at the sheet in her hand as the diminutive woman at the front of the lecture hall began introducing herself as Mrs Sherman and was everyone aware this was the "Class, Desire and the Novel" course – if they were in the wrong room please take your things with you.
Oh, what could it hurt? It had been a while since she'd actually attended an event that wasn't part of the New York elite's social calendar, just for fun.
#
A change of clothes later, Blair found herself swimming through a sea of wild partygoers dressed for the beach – "one last plunge before you hit the books", the flyer had proclaimed in bold letters. Blair saw for herself how literal the message had been when she reached the sliding door to the backyard. There, a gigantic pool and twisting slides took up the entire available space, crawling with young people dressed in swimwear. Blair felt completely overdressed in her ballet flats and a sensible summer dress.
Making friends, indeed.
"Blair! You made it!"
Blair followed the voice to its owner, boggling when she saw Nelly Yuki in… that. A gold string bikini. And dripping. With a mai tai in hand. Designer sunglasses in place. Looking for all the world like she'd been born to do this and always had. A gaggle of her friends and several boys tagged along, surrounding her. Once again, Blair felt like someone must be fucking with her screenplay. Nelly Yuki was not a hip popular chick, it just didn't compute.
"Er, yeah!" she offered instead of the "who are you and where is Nelly Yuki?" that wanted to come out of her mouth. "I didn't think it would be like… this," she finished lamely.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I should have told you to bring a bathing suit." Nelly glanced sideways and changed subjects before Blair could retort with a platitude. "By the way, guys, this is the girl I was talking about from Constance. Meet Blair Waldorf."
A short brunette in a turquoise bikini – what little of it that covered her – perked up. "Is it true your best friend slept with your boyfriend? Is he hot? Are you still with him?"
Nelly chuckled, pushing the girl back with a smirk. "Down, Shelly." Then she took her fashionable glasses off her nose, dangling them off her finger. "It's been so long, Blair. Are you still with Nate?"
"No, we… no," Blair stammered awkwardly. Gosh, there was nothing to talk about. Only a heartbreak realised too late and years of lies to feed a fairytale.
The Asian girl pegged Blair hard, the look one almost of a predator. "Finally found your way out of your pathetic little storybook?"
Whuh. "What?" Blair breathed, horror niggling into her mind at the piercing look aimed at her.
But Nelly wasn't done. "What about Penelope and the rest?" she growled, triumph ebbing steadily into her eyes. "Left you alone after prom, didn't they? Oh, they probably found someone else to suck up to. Or maybe they found it wasn't worth it."
Frozen, Blair watched Nelly Yuki's ruby lips move in horror but couldn't hear the words coming out of her mouth. She was too busy wondering if it would be possible to wake up from this worst nightmare any time soon.
Nelly glanced at her friends, taking strength in their number and the fact that they were all watching the frozen figure Blair made with varying degrees of newfound disdain. No one liked a fallen queen. They only liked to break ugly ducklings or transform them into thankful little copies of the original swan. Blair didn't fit the requirements.
"Remember prom, Blair?" Nelly's eyes sharpened maliciously.
Fuck, how could she forget? It only haunted her when she wanted to forget the whole night.
"I never thought I'd see the gold of that crown," the Asian girl continued in the same triumphal vein. "It was almost as though… someone had set me up for embarrassment."
Blair remembered the indignation she'd felt. Overriding that feeling, though, had been the bone-deep betrayal of the one person… who made all the previous losses culminate to that final one. It wasn't even about the crown. It was that he would choose to ruin the one night she had left to shine.
"Me, in my hideously ill-fitted dress." Nelly turned to her friends almost apologetically. "You have to understand, I was a very different person back then. Right, B?"
She had to leave. Now. If she could move her own two feet away from the person who embodied everything she'd lost. "Excuse me. I'm not feeling so well after all," she murmured, shuffling away after regaining control of her limbs. She felt so numb that Nelly Yuki's next blow penetrated her defenses to the quick, too easily.
"What?" the other said darkly, "don't tell me you still worship the porcelain gods? Really, B, that's not very in control of you, now, is it?" And she laughed again as Blair flinched under the assault. "Good seeing you crownless, Queen B!" Nelly Yuki quipped before Blair could be out of earshot completely.
#
Blair could always run and pray to a God she didn't believe in that this first day at Yale was refundable. Problem was, she didn't even think of that option as she slammed into her apartment a few minutes later. She'd been numb; the stilted walk back had proved refreshing. She shook, boiled inside, ready to explode.
How dare Nelly Yuki treat Blair like the lowest of lowest vermin? She wouldn't be anywhere if it wasn't for her. She'd still be a bumbling nobody with a fetish for granny skirts and Math textbooks stuck to her face if it weren't for her urgent but slow makeover. Since when did a loyal, loving subject stab her queen in the back so viciously? The answer was: they didn't. Take Penelope and the other pet minions – quick, clean break… no mess. They'd simply turned their backs like so many times before, and she honestly hadn't cared anymore.
But if the loyal, loving subject did backstab?
Blair paced. She never paced.
Good seeing you crownless, Queen B!
The little conniving bitch. She'd pay with blood. Crownless? Blair dragged a hand through her hair. Indeed.
Blair paced. Picked up her cellphone. Paced. Paced. Dialed. Paced. Hit send. Sat hard on her bed, knuckles going white around the small contraption.
The other end picked up after three rings. "Never thought I'd see your name again," the male voice drawled distractedly in her ear, and Blair was utterly helpless against the small shiver of awareness ramming through her. Nothing she could do to prevent it.
"I need your help," she murmured in the mouthpiece and nevertheless prepared herself for the rebuke that was sure to come. Desperation coloured her words with shame, and still she hoped.
A small snort sounded at the other end amid the telltale clap of keys on a keyboard. "Need a social resurrection?" Then a total pause before he added. "By the way, how's Yale?"
Hell via blast from past. "Nelly Yuki," she growled into the phone. When he didn't reply immediately, she continued, vehemently. "I want her head on a platter."
She imagined him reclining in his father's plush, refurbished office, the New York City skyline outlined in darkness and in light behind him. There would be a definite reminiscence to the Old World look that his father had preferred, but an even bigger leaning toward an opulent, hip postmodernism, hard lines assorted to sweeping curves and bright colours. At the moment the lights would be dimmed, setting Chuck nearly in shadows but for the changing lights behind him and the blue halo from his computer screen showing columns of numbers and names. She saw it so clearly, and yet she'd never set foot near Chuck Bass in two years. The overwhelming certainty surprised her.
"I thought you were more than capable of handling her yourself," he taunted smoothly, dismissively. "Give her the old 'bitch bow to me' routine."
Blair glared nails through her bare walls – they would need art if she didn't want to have migraines all year long. "She gives a new definition to 'whoa, Nelly'."
"Not my problem, Blair."
"You made her my problem," she hissed at him through her teeth, hating that she would have to stoop down so low as to begging.
Chuck sighed, a long-suffering one. "Now what did I do? From my office in New York, might I add?" He spoke as if she was simply being silly and wasting his time.
Blair stared a hole through her wall, feeling a headache setting in comfortably. "Prom," she growled viciously. "You made her queen. Chuck, she's unstoppable."
"And I'm a wealthy, busy businessman, Blair," he interjected with another sigh. "I'm past juvenile schemes and, by the way, aren't you exaggerating just a bit?"
Without even knowing how she got there, Blair was suddenly on her feet again, pacing a hole in her parquetry. "Not even a little," she replied hotly, then gathered herself to convince him. "Get the dirt on her; that's all I ask."
She virtually saw him rolling his eyes in disgust as he replied. "Pick up the Yellow Pages and get your own P.I. Besides," he added as an afterthought, "mine's on vacation."
Blair scowled out the darkened window for a change, tapping her foot in exasperation. Why couldn't he understand? "We both know you can be more than persuasive when you want to be," she said wryly, unwilling to go through the specifics. She was a case in point.
His voice on the other end became… tired. "When there's something in it for me, yes." He paused, meaningfully. "I don't see anything worthy here."
Blair's heart drummed to her throat in dismay, her fingers loosening ever so slightly on her phone as defeat and desperation warred within her. Could she? Could she really ask him to ignore two years of nothing, not even a "hi" or a "how are you" to help her? Swallowing, she knew the truth, but it couldn't prevent her throat from becoming paper-dry. "I could make it–" she began, only to be interrupted by Chuck's hard voice cutting through her resolve.
He sighed. "Save your breath. I'm not interested." There. The final words.
No. "Chuck…" Floundering, Blair sat again, closing her eyes and drawing up old memories, fond memories from a time not so far away after all. "Remember the chase, the thrill, the mysteries?" she began with a small smile, sure it translated through her voice and back to him. "Finding the truth and making heads spin? Think about it… putting Nelly Yuki in her place…"
It took a while for him to answer, but he didn't reply as she'd expected. "… And you in yours? I thought you were over queendom."
"I am," Blair snapped, "thanks to you."
He didn't waste time poking into the wound. "And yet here you are, calling me at this ungodly hour," he sneered, pausing to let it sink in. "You must be a masochist, Blair."
For a moment Blair considered calling him every name in the book in two languages just to spite him. But as she opened her mouth to, she stopped herself. Against her closed lids she saw her dream from that very morning – and way too many before to count – a haunting vision that ceaselessly mocked her into reality. Right then and there, she simply lost the fight in her – twice in the same night… a new record. "Nevermind, Chuck. I never called. Go back to your whores or spreadsheets or whatever and goodnight."
She held the phone tightly in her hand, unsure if she was willing him to respond or change his mind or what. Or just listening. Yet just when she'd given up waiting for help in her last hope to reclaim herself, he spoke. "Blair."
She didn't reply. Lay down in bed waiting for what he had to say.
There was a long pause, and she wanted to imagine him finding it as hard to say goodbye for real, as she had. There'd been no words two years ago. He breathed out suddenly, the sound a gust of what she wanted to be regret. "Goodnight, Blair."