A/N: This is my first Gossip Girl story. I just couldn't take it any more how the writers fail to see the need for Blair and Chuck to be together, so I decided to do it myself. I wish I owned Chuck Bass but, sadly, I don't.
He stares blankly at the half-empty glass of scotch in his hand, realizing he doesn't really want it. But he needs it, so he gulps it down in one go, reveling in the burning feeling as it slides down his throat.
He realizes he's moping. Chuck Bass, moping. That's a sight you don't see every day.
He did the one right thing in his life, he let Blair go and let her be happy. But he's now certain that if doing the right thing hurts this much, he never wants to do it again. For he's never felt this numbing, yet slicing kind of pain before.
Yes, the right thing to do. But now, as Chuck sits alone in his hotel room – for he certainly didn't want to be home, watching Lily reproach Serena – he replays his conversation with Blair over and over again in his head.
What are we, Chuck? Tell me if what you feel for me is real – or if it's just a game?
He knows how he should've answered her first question. He should've said that they are Blair and Chuck, Chuck and Blair. They don't hold hands, don't go for a walk in the park, don't have brunch together. They scheme, plan, hurt, destroy but it's irrelevant, really. For it's not about what? but with whom? and no matter what they'll do, they will be Chuck and Blair.
But he has no right to hurt her over and over again. He is not good enough for her. He would have no idea how to be Prince Charming like Nate but she deserves her Prince and a fairytale. Chuck doesn't hate Nate; far from that. He's her choice.
As for her second question, it's one he's never been able to answer. Love is a distant abstract notion, missing from his life since he was a little boy. Chuck could claim his mother would've loved him but Evelyn Bass remained forever unknown to him. His father never showed any affection and despite his later confessions, Chuck discards them quickly. All his relationships with women have been too short-lasted to be called love.
He's fairly certain that what he feels for Blair might be called love but it makes him too vulnerable. What if he lost her after he confessed his love for her? That is what scares him the most.
A soft knock on the door awakens him from his reverie. Must be the room service.
Before he gets up to answer it, the door opens quietly. As he turns himself around to tell whoever there is to fuck off, he is faced with the impossible in the form of Blair Waldorf.
She doesn't look sad any more like she did when she left him at the bar, nor does she have the fake happy smile plastered on like she did when she and Nate left the police station. Blair is oddly determined, even mischievous.
"What's the matter, Bass? Swallowed your tongue?" There's a playful tone in her voice that puzzles Chuck even more.
"Waldorf. I thought you left with Nathaniel." He's deliberately cold and harsh, hoping it will make her leave before he breaks down.
"I did. To tell him it is not going to work out."
"I gave you my answer so you can run off and play home with him. I thought you'd have a picket-fenced house looked out already."
Blair shakes her head and takes a step closer to him. He stands his ground. "You should know me, Chuck. I don't do picket fences."
She seems set on a goal he cannot pick up on and it scares him a bit. He has never seen her so cool and collected before.
"Of course not. But you do limos." Hurt flashes in her eyes before she conceals it masterfully and steps even more closer, violating his personal space.
"That's right. And that's why I'm here. I don't want a picket fence and a picture-perfect life. I thought I did but then I realized it's wrong. How could boring make me happy?"
"I let you go, Blair. Don't tell me you didn't understand my answer."
"Why'd you think I could let you go?" She's so close now that he can smell her and that smell makes his head go dizzy, makes him lose focus.
"I cannot let you go, no matter how much I pretend to. And I know that deep down inside your soul you feel the same."
She is walking on thin ice now and Chuck feels his barriers beginning to crumble. "I told you that it's just a game, it is not real."
"If it is a game, I want to play as well. What makes you think this game was designed for one?"
Blair leans closer and he knows that if he moves just a bit, he would touch those incredibly beautiful lips of hers.
Before he can say anything, she continues. "The trouble is, I don't know the rules. But since you created this game, I hoped you could show me. If you play alone, you always lose. This game is meant for two."
Her voice is not more than a whisper by now. She looks up at him with those deep chocolate brown eyes. He thinks about everything – the Victrola, the limo, scheming against Georgina and Poppy, Marcus and Nate and Carter, his father's death, every smile she's ever given him – and he knows that during this millisecond, his heart decided.
"Let's play."
And when he kisses her, he knows that she knows that he loves her but she doesn't know that he knows it's not enough.
So when they part, and Blair graces him with a smile never seen before, he takes a deep breath, like he's about to take a plunge into something unknown and, this time without fear, says those three, actually five, words.
"I love you, Blair Waldorf."
*Waiting for you to push that button...*