Together At The End Of The World
Summer brings plane tickets and departing trains. One by one- they all leave. Floating off with first class tickets to post grad courses or indefinitely long spring breaks, determined to prolong the illusion that they are still young, still children. That the world is still theirs for the taking and they don't have to face it first.
Only two stay behind, the boy billionaire and the avant garde fashion designer, avoiding each other's eyes as they bid adieu to all their friends and their family.
Eric is the last to leave- there is no one to see him off but Jenny and Chuck. He has a fellowship at Oxford. He says good bye with a wide smile and his eyes are shining with excitement. He commissions Little J to get into as much trouble as she can without him and tell Chuck to look after her.
The man's jaw tightens but he nods stiffly, ruffles his brother's hair and sends him off. The two left behind stand together for a moment after he leaves. Jenny stares at the buttons on her sleeve and Chuck stares straight ahead.
"Well," she says, finally, "I'll be seeing you."
He turns to her like he'd forgotten she was here. "Yes- yes, of course."
She thinks she'll only see him when the ships come back in.
***
Things change faster than she expects.
She's having tea with Lily in the Blue Drawing Room one day, when Chuck Bass walks in, flowers under his arm. Lilies. Cute.
He starts when he sees her but composes himself and presents the bouquet to Lily with as much aplomb as he can muster. Jenny hides her giggles in the porcelain tea cups, mouth pressed to the rim and buries her confusion even further.
So, maybe Chuck Bass is a romantic.
Could he also, perhaps, be a man?
She quells her doubts, makes small talk with the step mother that both of them share and tries not to look frightened when he offers to walk her out the door. Chuck sneers at her coat- long, dark and purple but in two weeks, every girl in Manhattan will want one.
They shake hands at the door in an odd formal way that makes all the snippets of their shared past seem more distant and remote then ever.
"So-" she's just turned the corner and he's still standing on the side walk, hands buried in his pockets.
She bites her lip. "Yeah?"
Chuck hesitates- takes a step back and then one forward. "Have you heard from Eric lately?"
She lifts her shoulders- "Not lately. He seems busy," – she wonders how much he knows- "I think there's a guy."
He shakes his head, runs a hand along his jaw. "I'm glad. Well- take care, then." He touches her hand as he leaves and Jenny suppresses a shudder. The man's made of sex, he always has been and right now- watching him walk way? She isn't his best friend's ex, she isn't the girl who took the love of his life down.
She isn't anyone. Not to him.
Jenny buys a triple mocha latte on the way home and pretends she's thirsty and she drowns her sorrows in caffeine. She sits a while at Starbucks, partly because she doesn't want to go home yet and partly because Dan's voice is in her head- denouncing the establishment for all it's worth and it's comforting. She misses her brother but she's glad he's happy.
Dan's studying for his phD at Yale, working as a teaching assistant and she happens to know he took that position at least partially because Blair is also studying there.
She sips faster, because thoughts of Blair lead to thoughts of Nate and she can't do that- not tonight. Even if her mind knows that he's Vanessa's man now, her heart often disagrees.
She doesn't have the strength to fight her heart tonight.
***
There is a letter the next morning, sitting at the breakfast table. She breaks the seal with a sigh, expecting bills or a letter from Eric. She has to sit down to read it, legs
Bass industries is offering to sponsor her label. Jenny takes a deep breath.
Dangerous waters, my friend. But she's ready.
***
She wears black to the meeting, leaves the eye liner at home and paints her mouth red like the queen she once was.
Her heels clack against the marble corridors, heralding her arrival and Chuck doesn't look up. She coughs with faux delicacy and purses her lips.
"Mr. Bass?"
His hot gaze slides over her appreciatively. "Ms. Humphrey." It's part purr, part sneer and she drinks in his admiration like a new drug.
She decides this particular perk of her new job is her favorite part of the deal. She isn't just another girl anymore. She's a business associate. And she's damn well going to blow him away.
***
Two weeks and the board is eating out of her palm. Chuck is surprised, pleased. He smirks in the corners and stares at her when he thinks she won't notice, but she does. His eyes are like liquid fire and everytime he looks at her, she can feel a brick wall against her back and her lips bruised with a kiss she never really wanted to end.
They've established some sort of rapport that hovers between banter and an almost awkward shyness. He calls her a lady not a bitch, but his tone implies that he means the latter and she's perfected the eye brow raise that Vanessa taught her and the curve of the neck that she learnt from Blair and it works-
He's captivated. She can tell.
She hitches her skirt a little bit higher one night and asks him out to dinner. The muscles in his jaw jump wildly but agrees.
This is just the first of them becoming friends.
***
Here's how it goes-
Dinner leads to movies, which leads to shows of the horror variety which leads to her hand reaching for his in the darkened theatre. There is adrenaline pumping through their veins and he can't keep his eyes off her pupils- wide as saucers. Or her mouth, hanging there open, raw and red. He is drunk on the sound of whimpers, her little moans but she's Jenny fucking Humphrey so he leaves, adjusting his pants as he does so.
"Chuck?"
She's followed him into the night air. Fuck. She's stepping far too close.
Her mouth hovers near his and she whispers his name in the sort of husky voice that sets fire to the loins of angels. He pulls her roughly to him and they stumble into a limo and through the city.
Dinner leads to sex.
So, this is how it goes.
***
She's insatiable.
It's new for her and that's addictive because where Blair pouted and denied wanting him, Jenny grabs and gasps and she is never afraid to beg.
They keep it a secret- there are no rules. They don't discuss it but he fingers her under the table sometimes at meeting and she'll punish him for it later. It isn't a relationship- he still goes out some nights to get drunk and get laid and she's dating a nice boy called Ethan.
They don't talk- but she lets him spend the night and he puts his arms around her and it feels like this was always meant to happen.
They are the ones left behind. Who else is there to turn to?
***
Vanessa calls one day. Jenny tests the waters- lets slip that she's been spending time with Chuck.
"I'm not sure if that's such a good idea, hun."
"Why not?" she's bristling- V doesn't even know Chuck. Not really.
Or so she thought. The voice on the other end tightens and Jenny feels her stomach turn. Even her smart, beautiful best friend is no more than another notch on Chuck's bed post.
She hangs up, sits in her bedroom and weeps.
***
He's worried when she won't pick up the phone. Her desk at the office has been empty for a week now.
He finds himself banging at her door- "What's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong?"
"I can't do this anymore."
It's cold, final and it snaps his heart in two. A broken man turns away from her door.
***
Nate sends a letter, talking about Vanessa and Blair and Serena and all the other women they've shared. He talks about his new life with V, how happy he is and how little he ever thinks things could have been different.
It tells Chuck more than the blonde boy intended to reveal- it tells Chuck everything.
He stands at her window and resolves to win her back. He can do it, too. Flowers, candy and wine and dine and the works.
He's Chuck Bass, after all. This is the city of New York. Wide, empty- wonderfully bare of everyone they know and she has no one to turn to but him.