A fleeing Raina bolted out the bedroom door, down the stairs like a horse from a firestorm and almost bowled Nate over in the process.
"Dude, that was harsh," the blonde peered in at his volatile best friend, wincing at how taut his dark features were. Chuck didn't get this upset when any old girl dismissed him. Usually he didn't stick around long enough to care if they left him. That was how Nate Archibald knew with absolutely certainty he was about to witness a Chuck Bass explosion. "Are you ok?" he tentatively broke the silence.
The boiling brunette didn't even hear him. A frustrated scream that had been boiled up inside him for weeks finally became physical and the glass tumbler in his hand was the victim. It got hurled at the nearest wall, exploding on impact. A rain of glass and the sound of crystal being decimated accompanied the dangerous slivers and shards that shattered everywhere.
Nate had chosen the wrong word. The failing businessman was definitely not ok.
"You know it's alright to be upset," Nate tried hard not to appear tentative, creeping into the room and trying to be supportive while still maintaining his distance for physical safety. At least the weapon of the glass was gone, and he'd never actually seen Chuck throw a punch so that had to be a plus.
As he got closer, it became more obvious that he was way out of his depth. He didn't having a clue what to say. He'd been around when Chuck lost it before. The remedy involved Chuck's two favourite vices – drugs and women. But seeing as Raina was the third of Chuck's girlfriends in the past year, he had a feeling that neither whores nor liquor would work at this moment. In the last year Chuck had become a girlfriend guy, and Nate silently cursed Blair Waldorf for doing this to his best friend. The guy was just fine before he lost his heart to her.
Chuck's breathing and wild eyes worried him - he'd never been near Chuck so emotionally and physically enraged. Usually he just wanted to zone out and remove himself from the world when he was facing hardship. But that coping mechanism looked nothing like this and Nate didn't really have an alternative.
The truth was that Chuck, at this stage, was beyond upset and into full on nuclear meltdown. His tightly held net of emotions keeping everything restrained inside snapped and now he was bursting at the seams with all the suppressed feelings he'd buried for the past months. Nate was so far off base as to its cause that he didn't realise what was actually wrong until Chuck spoke.
"Upset," he laughed darkly, the sound almost black with anger. He turned his dark, stormy eyes on his best friend and Nate actually cringed away. "She's going to help Russell Thorpe ruin Bass Industries, the only thing I have left of my father."
"C'mon man, you know it's more than just the company. You have feelings for her," he tried to tempt the billionaire into a slightly more positive outcome for this evening.
Something only Blair Waldorf had been able to accomplish with Chuck Bass. Nate gave it a try anyway.
Chuck's repulsed gaze narrowed and Nate realised the usually smug, knowing flicker was completely gone. He recoiled from the burning resentment that blazed beneath. "Feelings for Raina," he reiterated in a slow, disbelieving drawl. "You're more clueless than you look Nathaniel."
Nate noticed his fingers curled in at his side, nails biting into the flesh of his palms. The outward sign of agony from Chuck scared him. Chuck never felt anything except the loss of Blair Waldorf that acutely.
"My skin is crawling," he breathed, like a dragon breathing fire. "Itching," he enunciated, making sure Nate understood every word. "Because I haven't," he paused here, as if to find the correct words. "Touched Blair," he finally said and there was so much more meaning tied up in those two words than the sounds he produced. The power of it shocked Nate into frozen disbelief. "In three months."
The last words were roared like a king royally pissed at his court and Nate could almost picture dukes and duchesses cowering at his feet, fleeing the throneroom to escape from the king's wrath.
He'd always seen himself as a white knight and right now he wanted to leap atop his trusty steed and gallop away from his best friend.
He had no idea how to deal with a Blair meltdown, because he hadn't known a Blair-thing was even going on! He was utterly baffled, but ultimately fighting a losing battle because it was beyond his capacity to understand. He'd never loved as Chuck had.
Chuck's insult to his Archibald intelligence completely passed him by because he was busy trying to understand the rest of it.
"Blair?" he repeated the blast from Chuck's love-life-past.
Since when was Chuck thinking about Blair? Contemplating being in a relationship again? They'd barely seen each other since the treaty, he was absolutely sure of it.
"I thought you'd moved on to Raina?"
After all she'd been gracing their penthouse quite frequently. Chuck took her to events and looked happy around her. Of course that was more than a simple escort – Chuck tired of women very quickly when they weren't petite brunettes who schemed and plotted and moved things into his closet without asking.
Yeah, he'd heard that rant from Chuck for about three days. Until Chuck realised that more of Blair's clothes in their penthouse meant more of Blair in their penthouse.
Nate needed to have his room soundproofed when they reunited after that.
Chuck glared at his clueless friend and suddenly wished he had a dagger in his hand. He pictured throwing it like a dart, and slicing through his best friend's shoulder, knowing it would relieve some of his tension. When would the word friend stop applying? The self-obsessed legacy truly hadn't seen what Blair's absence was doing to him?
For crying out loud! He was physically sickened as the process of waiting for her drew out interminably. Now not weeks but months were passing without her and he spent most days on the verge of nausea. His patience thin, his skin taut as he ached for her without an end in sight.
And all Nate could do was just stand there, clueless? Sometimes he physically shook with the need, with that repulsive sensation of unsatisfied want. It was always when he saw her – at a party where they couldn't avoid each other and he inhaled her scent accidentally, or would feel her heat without being close enough to touch her. Or on Gossip Girl when she would be out and about in her daily life and he was reminded he wasn't by her side for any of that anymore. Those times he would covet her so wholly that he would go to bed trying to remember how he'd been such an utter screw up, somehow losing her not once but over and over again.
Nate's confused puppy face made it clear his pea-sized brain was still trying to compute all the information he'd received. It made Chuck's throat burn for the taste of hard liquor and the numbing it would bring. Scotch. Whiskey. Hell gin or tequila would do. Anything to help dull the longing that was starting to stab him in the gut again. He'd felt a gun butted against him before, had felt it fire and a bullet rip through his stomach. This threatened to finish him off unless he returned to where he was supposed to be and finally found relief secure in her arms.
He brought himself back to his current surroundings and rolled his eyes. 'Venice' he'd told Raina – it was a weak effort on his part. He'd been planning to do what he'd always done, which was trade sex for secrets and win his father's company back. So that one day damn effing soon he could take his father's life's work, marry his beloved and make it part of their legacy.
Instead he was left to suffer through yet another bout of Blair-encholy.
His mind drifted to the ring locked up tight in his safe and the more detailed plans for his own legacy he'd begun to flesh out in his imaginings. Then he lunged for the champagne bottle. He couldn't stand anymore of it just now, not tonight. He'd seen her downstairs for just a minute and it was too much and not enough and all he wanted was to stand there, talking to her, until the night became day and the rest of the world ceased to exist. He wanted to be with her. He wanted her to be with him. And he had to live knowing it wouldn't happen.
So he poured himself a generous glass and started sucking it down in large gulps. He stopped for breath and refilled the empty glass.
"Wo wo, slow down," Nate interrupted him. "Just go apologise to Raina," he reiterated his thought of a few moments ago.
Chuck rolled his eyes in annoyed disbelief before he could stop himself.
"That's business," he justified the Thorpe vice president's place in his bed with such cold brutality that Nate's eyebrows rose.
Cold, heartless Chuck hadn't made an appearance in quite some time. He hadn't expected to see him ever again, not since he originally confessed how he felt to Blair.
Nate was still convinced that Raina had some place in his best friend's heart.
"It's not just business," Nate disagreed, based on his own observations of the two of them. "You have real feelings for her. I've seen you."
Chuck swallowed, wondering if he'd played the part too well. Nathaniel was thick and hopefully easily convinced. But what about Blair, did she believe that too? The thought of her having to picture him with someone else made his knees weak. He sunk into one of the dining chairs and for a moment felt all the blood rush to his head.
Blair knew he was still just for her – right? That all she had to do was give him a sign? He could be wherever she wanted. By her side, between her thighs, down on one knee…
The fabric of his suit began to feel rough, too rough against his irritated skin. The sensation was akin to rolling in hay after laying in soft silken sheets and relaxing to the feel of his beloved's freshly-washed hair falling over his shoulders. It was lots of tiny, irritating prickles. His existence had become physically painful without her and he was finding it harder to stand.
Losing his footing in reality as his thoughts drifted he tried to divert his attention from the irritation by focusing on his friend.
"I have been trying to distract myself," he finally allowed, narrowing it down to the very basics for his absurdly unknowing friend, but not allowing anymore of his turbulent emotions to show.
He only exposed himself to her.
Nate was like a skittish colt as he slowly approached the table, wary of Chuck aiming something at him this time. When nothing eventuated, he tentatively sat opposite at the romantic dinner set for two, pouring his own champagne. He was still finding it odd to comprehend that the relationship Chuck appeared to be in for the past few weeks was no more than a distraction.
"From Blair?" he probed.
Thick as a post. That was the unkind thought that passed through Chuck's mind. No wonder he missed her! She was quick, intuitive and razor sharp. Her focused mind keenly analysed the world around her and reached conclusions faster than he ever could. He needed that hyperawareness back, to lift him from the drag of waiting for Nate.
However he didn't have that many friends and he really did care for Nate on some level. So, feeling gracious, and allowing that the puppy should get at least a small treat, he raised his dark eyebrow in acknowledgement. It should have been so blindingly obvious but what the hell.
"Then go get her," Nate looked at him like he was a simpleton. His broad hand gestured to the open door. "She's here tonight," he reminded.
As if the single thing keeping him from the lover he craved was his inability to walk down a set of stairs. If Blair's mere proximity could solve his problems, he would have been stalking her in the back of his limo, seducing her every chance he got, until he slid inside her to the bone and they became the one being they were destined to be.
Except she wanted to be her own person apart from him. And Anne Archibald had made it clear that he wasn't yet good enough to deserve her.
"I need Raina to help save my father's company," Chuck spat through gritted teeth. Maybe that substantial increase in his personal wealth and adult responsibility would be enough for her.
He would give everything of himself to know when it would be enough. To know that he could be assured the right to bury his nose into the nape of her neck and scent her. He turned away from his own thoughts, lest he make for the door and stalk down the stairs until he found her and ravished her where she stood. Instead he looked at the pile of shattered glass that had fragmented the opulent room he'd intended to use as a persuasive sex cave on Valentine's Day. It was a lazy effort at best, a mockery of what he'd envisioned for his other.
His glance still strayed to the door. The other option of going to her was such an infinitely tempting possibility that he could barely stand to consider it. "And Blair wants to be her own star. I just have to wait."
That last word was spat out like the poison it was, eating away his soul. The waiting was bad, not knowing was worse. The worry that he may never feel her hands smoothing and cupping his neck as they kissed again. To accompany the acidic bitterness in his stomach he took a long, dissatisfied drink from his glass. The too-sweet alcohol fizzed against his tongue and he had to force himself not to spit it out. He liked reserving champagne for romantic encounters.
And the best of those involved strawberries and her in a very playful mood.
He huffed and kicked his feet up on the table, because either his cock or heart breaking was only moments away, and he didn't like the thought of either when he wasn't alone.
"You're doing a really good job of hiding these feelings," Nate almost seemed to be teasing.
The playboy smirked. A compliment, if ever he'd heard one, that he so perfectly played up to his image of a cold-hearted bastard. Wouldn't Bart be ever so proud?
"I've had years of practice," he reminded. Tonight was Valentine's night, and he was starting to wake up to the fact that he wasn't going to spend it with Blair. They weren't going to run their hot mouths over each other, eager and excited to live up to the expectation of February 14th. Their treasured shared whispers and kisses and promises to rock the world off its very axis were not going to eventuate like they had last year. All they would share were the few laced but sparse words they'd exchanged downstairs. The single longing glance.
The unfulfilled promise was getting too much to bare.
He retreated emotionally but his fallback position of cruelty was always freely available. Especially when his woman wasn't claiming her right to temper it. And Nate was such an easy target.
"The first time was three minutes after she first dumped me," he recalled with absolute precision "My best friend pulled her into a hotel room and had the gall to wink at me."
Nate looked startled.
Chuck felt the wretched agony all over again. And it spat out of him in a vitriolic burst of gunfire as the only available enemy took every bullet in stunned surprise.
"Try hiding your feelings when that's all you can think about. That last night you were the only one ever allowed inside her and tonight someone else's filthy hands are touching her delicate skin."
Nate's jaw dropped and he looked away, too ashamed to meet his best friend's eyes. They'd never discussed that particular event and with good reason. He still didn't understand how badly adolescent Chuck had been crushed by that betrayal. The girl he loved retreating from their passion and replacing his possessive caresses with the rancid relationship she had ended with her ex. He'd been that close to murdering his best friend in Monte Carlo that Christmas. If Blair hadn't been texting him furiously to assure his silence he might just have done it.
Nate might be blind sometimes but right now he could tell that already wounded Chuck was a dangerous creature indeed. He had all his weapons at the ready and he was desperate to unload with nothing to lose.
Less artfully than others would have, Nate chose the safest path and turned the embittered conversation back to Chuck. It was time to put them on a steadier course, hopefully a happier one.
"Does Blair even know?"
The champagne flute lifted to his lips and stayed there until he'd drained the glass. An unsubtle delaying tactic but he needed more time to think this through. And to calm the rage in Chuck's obviously pounding blood.
There was a long pause from the dark-haired companion.
"I almost told her at Christmas," he confessed hesitantly. Then paused, as if unsure of what he was about to say. "I don't want to rush us," not the truth, and yet wholeheartedly a wish. "When we're together I want her to be happy."
There it was. The crux of his misery. That he would give up himself to ensure Blair's happiness.
They fell into uncomfortable silence. Nate didn't have the answer and Chuck had nothing else to say. What else could he possibly reveal? For now he had nowhere to go, no escape in another unfulfilling woman, no welcome in the haven he craved. All he had was this dastardly inbetween.
He condescendingly surveyed the luxurious room around them. None of it was right. Seeing his head twist, and happy for a change of subject, Nate innocuously commented "you really went all out in here."
Chuck scoffed. His friend had no idea what 'all out' looked like. His memory flickered to before, his girlfriend draped in the finest silk, so thin he'd tempted a tiny soft nipple to come to the fore and crease the blushing cover. He'd felt like a god king, then. When the barest touch could coax such delicious reactions from her controlled body, and his attentions made her deliriously happy. As happy as she made him. He could remember with perfect clarity how she'd accepted the glass of champagne he held out to her and curiously surveyed their surroundings. Then that deliciously knowing smile had curved her plump pink lips in anticipation and his mouth had gone bone dry.
"You should have seen what I did for Blair last year," he smirked, still caught in the lingering warmth of her smile that day. The hint of happiness faded as quickly as the memory. "Or what I had planned for us this year." That last part came out on his breath, and he wished he hadn't said it the moment it was free.
Some things were too private even to share with Nathaniel.
He fingered the coarse bedspread. Now that the words were out he couldn't stop them, though he desperately wanted to. Unprompted, he kept talking, driving home to Nate how much this outburst of actual emotion was truly about Blair. How much everything lately was about a waning in his ability to simply sit back and wait for her.
He couldn't be restrained anymore.
"Right now, a year ago, I was falling asleep and thinking that when Valentine's Day came around again, we'd be living together." His dark eyes rolled to the ceiling and for a second Nate thought they were shining. That couldn't be right though. "I never could have foreseen this."
It felt very forlorn in that room just then.
"I miss her," he suddenly growled, letting it all boil down into those words. "I miss just talking to her without all the awkwardness."
It was true – he'd not only lost his girlfriend but friend, companion, soul mate when they stopped being together. It became more obvious as time went on.
Nate saw something Chuck didn't. The brunette in question emerging from a curtain across the room. Making it clear she'd heard absolutely everything. He smiled slowly. There wasn't a lot he could do for Chuck – the guy was always two steps ahead of everyone else. But this, this he might be able to help with. After all Blair was right there, how hard could it be?
"If Raina and Blair were in front of you right now, who would you choose?" he clumsily prompted Chuck. Knowing that if only Blair could see him say it, his enamoured friends may finally fix themselves.
And he felt like he should play a part, he still felt kind of guilty because he knew his mom had played a part in their latest breakup.
"I told you, Raina is business," Chuck hissed, wondering if Nate had been listening at all. He couldn't have put it more plainly.
"So, business or pleasure?" Nate stressed. "Would you choose Raina?" he played dumb. Having already heard Chuck spell it out, he needed him to do it one more time.
With the love of his life watching.
"Blair would understand, it's your father's legacy," he gave Chuck the perfect opportunity to unknowingly put it right. "After all she's trying to get to the top too."
Business was a priority, that was something Chuck could agree on. Over everything but one single person.
"Blair," Chuck said firmly.
Not an ounce of hesitation.
"There's no choice. It's Blair."
His woman's voice was soft but clear as it cut through the private conversation like a sharp knife into his heart.
"Archibald, Humphrey," she snapped in her cool, confident voice.
"Out."
He whipped around, looked from her, to the door that had never opened, then back to Blair standing across the room. Her eyes fired dark arrows straight through his chest and then locked onto him, refusing to let go.
"I need to talk to Chuck," she dictated, a warrior queen in a room full of indentured subjects.
His heart seized at the sight of her in all her glory, knowing she'd heard every word he said. Then he looked back at Nate, stupid, clueless Nate, in disbelief.
Nate winked knowingly and Chuck was completely blindsided.
"C'mon Dan," he encouraged the Brooklynite while cheekily dancing his eyebrows in Chuck's direction.
They quickly disappeared, and Blair pushed the door shut behind them. Then she turned the key in the lock and trapped him in the room with her. She slowly rotated to face him again. And everything, all the rules he'd been constraining himself with, all the agony and want he'd been forced to live with, came crashing down around him.
