Everlong
Summary: "Just this once." She is only saying this out loud, he knows, because she needs to reassure herself that she has the upper hand here, that he has no control over how this will play out between them. He chooses not to remind her that this is not the first time they've done this, and it certainly won't be the last. Chuck/Vanessa AU
Disclaimer: lyrics in italics and title belong to Foo Fighters
Rating: T; there's nothing explicit, i don't think
A/N: some mentions of Vanessa/Nate and Chuck/Blair (so, there's a little somethin' for everyone :) this is just something that's been nagging at me for a while, and i'm still not entirely sure it's where i want it to be, but reviews/opinions would be appreciated. enjoy, all.
Tonight
I throw myself into
And out of the red,
Come down
And waste away with me
Down with me.
…
She is standing in the doorway, keeping herself poised on the edge of the threshold to his hotel room, not quite ready to fully commit herself to the decision she's already made. Chuck remains seated on the bed, watching her as she takes a small, hesitant step forward, watches the war of conflict wage between her mind and her body, her wants and needs.
He waits for her to come to him, because he knows that's the only way that this will happen. There is a part of him that is surprised to see her here. And yet another, that really wasn't expecting any other outcome.
"Just this once."
This is neither a promise nor a threat; it is simply a statement of fact—nothing more, nothing less. Vanessa is only saying this out loud, he knows, to appease the need she has to reassure herself that she has the upper hand here.
That is what she thinks; it is how she convinces herself that there is nothing dangerous about what they're doing, and that he doesn't have complete control over how this will play out. That is what she thinks until his hands grip her thighs, his nails scratching through her fishnet stockings and dragging lightly across her skin and then suddenly, following a groan, a gasp, and a muffled moan, she is underneath him.
"That was easy."
"Shut up," she snaps, her tone a tantalizing mixture of disgust and want that crawls underneath his skin and settles there.
He chooses not to remind her that this is not the first time they've done this, and it certainly won't be the last. It's become an old dance really, a well rehearsed routine with an outcome that he's learned to predict.
She can say the words, and feign the indifference but he knows it'll take more than a few well-placed insults for her to actually mean it.
"Just this once," she repeats, nodding firmly— an obvious contradiction to her soft, shaky voice.
He laughs against her lips as his hands coast up and down her bare sides. "We'll see," is all he says in reply. She tugs roughly on his hair and he nips at the base of her throat, his tongue darting out briefly to taste her skin.
She shivers.
…
Ice clinks in the tumbler sitting on the counter top just underneath her fingertips. She swirls the straw in a slow circle, then runs her finger through the beads of condensation rolling on the side of the glass. She looks pensive, distant, and upset but Chuck is morose and lonely and he can't stop himself—he hardly ever can— from intruding on her moment.
Her eyes are smoky, her lips pink, and she gives him the once over before her eyes narrow into a glare. Chuck swallows, thickly, when she runs her tongue across her lips, absentmindedly it seems but he wouldn't put it past her to try to get under his skin. He smirks.
"What are you doing here?" she asks, her voice flat. Vanessa doesn't turn to face him until he's standing next to her, with no space between them.
"The bar hasn't been closed down yet, has it?"
She tsks, and then rolls her eyes. "You don't think it's a bit hypocritical of you to have a drink in the bar you helped to shut down?"
"I don't have a problem admitting my hypocrisies." His phrasing of that particular statement is deliberate; he knows that part of the reason behind why Vanessa's here has to do with Nate Archibald and her sudden and abrupt interest in the world of the Upper East Side - and how miserably it all failed.
"Is that your very subtle way of saying that I do?" she asks snidely, eyes flashing in anger.
He is saying that, in fact that's exactly what he means, but she's smart enough to not need him to verbalize it. And he's not as cruel as the world would like to make him out to be.
So he shrugs, avoiding her question, and silencing his answer, trying not to let it show how much he's enjoying getting her riled up, how much seeing her angry is improving his mood. It's a sadistic pleasure, and Chuck has no shame in admitting that. "I didn't help to shut this bar down. I tried to save it."
"Why the hell should I believe that?" Vanessa demands.
"…I don't expect you to."
He thinks that this is the moment when it starts. When he tells her there are no expectations, no limits, no boundaries. When he tells her he will take as much as she can give, nothing more, nothing less. Or maybe it starts when he's on his second drink and she has knocked back another rum and coke and his hand is on her knee and she hasn't pushed him off, and he tells her— with his fingers gliding across the smooth skin of her thigh and his lips near her ear— that Nate is an idiot and she deserves better. (Or, at least, something to that effect.)
He thinks sometime in between her hiking up the hem of her dress and him pressing her between him and the wall of his hotel room— when his name leaves her mouth in the form of a satisfied sigh— is when this thing between them starts to turn into something different altogether.
(And he doesn't think the end will be in sight any time soon.)
…
"Stay."
"Why?"
He twirls a tendril of her hair around his finger, tugs on it to pull her closer. He kisses the curve of her jaw, then a pulse point just below her ear. She forces herself to ignore the way her stomach clenches in response.
It's just physical. Purely physical.
"Stay."
"Chuck…"
He isn't drunk—or high— when he asks her this time, though she vindictively almost wishes he was. It would justify her turning him down, would give her validation for the mistrust that is a constant presence in her gut whenever he portrays an emotion resembling affection, whenever he tries to get her to believe this means more to him than it actually does—that there is something else, other than just plain physical need, that brings them closer together.
He won't call this commitment. He doesn't have the balls, courage, or faith to label whatever it is that they're doing a relationship and she doesn't want this one little request to change anything, doesn't want to be the one to get her hopes up, so she doesn't.
"Stay." His hand makes a tortuously slow path from her neck, over the curve of her shoulder, and then coasts, gently, down her arm until his fingers are encircling her wrist. Her eyes are closed, but she can feel herself leaning into him, knows that if she reaches out, she will feel him, firm and solid beneath the soft touch of her hand.
"I can't."
This is not the first time she's rejected him. She doesn't want him to say he wants her around when his reasoning is impaired by drugs, alcohol, or by the unbearable loneliness and the deceptive haze of euphoria that settles over them after sex. She doesn't want either of those reasons to be why she stays.
It's hard to believe him, but it is even that much harder for her to trust him.
The first time she actually stays with him, he doesn't have to ask her to. It's on a Sunday and they've spent the morning in bed but by noon she figures she's probably overstayed her welcome— until the moment comes where she hesitates to leave the bed and he doesn't hesitate to stop her. He wraps arm around her bare waist and the weight is heavy, but not burdening. She faces him, but they don't say anything. He doesn't ask anything of her, doesn't do anything other than kiss her deeply when she closes her eyes. So this time, she stays.
…
Sometimes, he thinks he can do better, be better, by getting over his fears and tell her what, exactly, she means to him. (Though she never asks.)
These are the times when he thinks he's capable of being someone other than a heartless bastard. He knows, that in spite of the way he treats her, she deserves better. Sometimes he tells her this, usually during a haze of orgasm induced euphoria and she smiles, in that condescending way that drives him crazy, with her hand on his cheek, brushing off his words as meaningless and doubtful. It's simple, really: she doesn't trust him. (And he has never fully understood the meaning of the word.)
"Try not to make any promises you know you can't keep."
She never expects him to change, and he thinks, maybe, that's why they've been working so well.
(But he can see, he can feel, that this world, that he is starting to change her.)
…
She's different.
"You're different." He says the words as if they're a curse; to prove his point he runs his fingers across her throat, the rough pads of his fingertips brushing against the small diamond necklace around her neck- a gift and an apology from him after one of their more bitter fights. She wears her hair straightened now, and has become a connoisseur of designer threads. She's accompanied him to galas and hotel parties, and Chuck has to struggle to remember the last time she coerced him into attending a film festival.
"You've changed," Chuck insists.
Vanessa feels her skin bristle with the sting of accusation, contradicted by the thrum of desire low in her gut. (She can't seem to wrap her mind around how he makes her feel, how she wants him to make her feel.)
She scoffs, and shifts her legs as she straddles him; she feels more than hears his groan as his hands tighten their grip on her hips. Predictably, he loses his train of thought as his body acting on instinct thrusts upward. She grins.
"And you haven't."
…
In an ironic reversal of roles, she is the one who cheats first.
She's convinced herself that what they have, what they do, does not equal out to a relationship. But, her feelings change when she sees the look on his face when he learns of her indiscretion— of which Blair didn't hesitate to inform him.
He doesn't have to ask to know who it happened with. He knows by the look on Vanessa's face, the tremble in her voice. He recognizes the turmoil in her eyes because it's the same one Chuck feels whenever he's with, near, or around Blair.
"It was nothing. I don't even know why I did it. I just—" she cuts herself off, resting her hands on his shoulders, trying not to cry and trying to get him to look at her. He won't.
"Why is it always him?" He didn't mean to say this out loud; he's never told her this was one of the reasons why he didn't try harder with Blair: he didn't want to compete with the past she shared with Nate Archibald, the Immaculate Golden Boy. Or, more accurately, he couldn't. When given a choice or opportunity who in their right mind would choose him over Nate?
He understands (but that doesn't mean the truth stings any less).
"It's not. It's not always him," she insists, adamant. He's never told her about any lingering jealousy towards Nate (but that doesn't mean she's never caught on.) "It didn't mean anything."
"Isn't that my line?" he asks sardonically, his gaze still fixed at some point on the floor, still adamantly refusing to look her in the eyes.
"Chuck." She grips his neck, the tips of her thumbs grazing his jaw and brushing past his lips. "I'm sorry," she insists, trying desperately to infuse and convey how much she means it. He finally looks her in the eyes, but Vanessa isn't entirely certain that what she sees makes her feel any better about what she's done.
He kisses her fiercely, almost painfully, but she is more than capable of giving back as good as she gets.
He's hurt her, more times than she is willing to admit, but she wonders if anyone knows that she is capable of hurting him back just as badly, if not worse, and Vanessa can't say that she was entirely oblivious of the effect this would have on him. She doesn't know what kind of person that makes her. She wonders how people would see her if they knew, underneath it all, that she and Chuck really aren't all that different.
…
From a table by the window, she watches him, all the while hating that she knows from the way he's gripping the glass in his hand— tight, desperate, needing— that it hadn't been a good night for him.
Vanessa hates that she finds herself caring so much about him, hates that him being this hurt, affects her. She hates that she's starting to know him so well - because, he knows her just as well.
"Hey."
He acknowledges her presence with nothing more than a nod, slowly tossing his head back and swallowing the amber colored liquid.
"We should talk."
"Maybe later," he dismisses coldly.
"Chuck, your father—"
"Later," he insists. He turns to look at her then and the defeat, heartbreak, and sadness reflected in his eyes strikes something in her, resonates a chord within her Vanessa didn't know existed, and she stops, startled. She rarely ever sees this part of him, is rarely privy to this level of vulnerability.
"I don't like talking about him, in case you haven't noticed." He admits the small truth into her skin, his lips pressed firmly against her temple. He sounds unrecognizably defeated and his arms tighten around her waist, his grip tight and unrelenting.
"I've noticed." She slides onto the bar stool next to him, silent as he finishes his drink. She chooses not to bring up the subject again for the rest of the night.
…
They last nine months, three weeks, and six days, before she's gotten tired of it. Tired of the games - because she knows he still talks to Blair. Tired of him - because she knows even the idea of a commitment still makes him want to do whatever it takes to cause it to crash and burn. (Though she's still not entirely sure that that isn't where they're headed, anyway.)
She makes the mistake, one night, of bringing up the fact that she thinks he drinks too much. (This is after, of course, he's called her a hypocrite for about the hundredth time.) It doesn't help matters that they've both had more than a few shots of alcohol between them.
"Yeah? And I think you fuck Nate Archibald too much."
"I already told you—"
"And I don't believe you."
"Of course not," she scoffs. "Are you really that insecure?" The words slip out before Vanessa even realizes she's saying them. She wants to place the blame on alcohol, wants to reassure him that that's not what she really meant to say but she gets caught up in lust and anger and the words in her mind only become one more truth she doesn't tell him.
"Do you really want to talk about 'insecurities'?" he sneers and she knows, without asking, what— who— he's referring to. (And a small part of her hates him for it.)
"You're such an asshole."
"Then why are you with me?"
This is the question that comes at the end of nearly every argument, the question that only reinforces Chuck's disbelief that any relationship he forms is genuine, that he deserves anything genuine, anything that goes beyond satisfying physical needs and sexual urges. It's the question that gives Vanessa more insight into who Chuck is than a thousand other possible things he could say.
"How many times are you going to push me away?" she asks sadly.
"How many times are you going to let me?" he counters.
(She doesn't have a response for that one.)
…
They never have any problems when it comes to this.
Of course not, Vanessa thinks sardonically.
She grips the headboard with one hand, giving herself balance and gaining leverage, when he grabs the other, slipping his fingers through hers and locking gazes with her, a first.
This is why she kisses him, hard— the opposite of chaste, all searching tongues and opened mouths; hot skin and labored breathing.
She sighs, expelling a shaky breath, and he inhales; the synchronicity of their breathing allows her to believe that maybe this won't end tragically, that maybe they won't be worse off simply for having known each other when this is all over.
It's an idealistic thought; she knows, if they were anyone else, any other couple in any other city in the world, that they might have a shot at making this work. (But, he is Chuck Bass, heir to an empire; and she is Vanessa Abrams, heiress to a shitty loft apartment in Brooklyn.)
He catches her gaze when he falls onto the bed next to her. He opens his mouth, seeming to want to say something, but just kisses her again. Her eyes slide shut as she pulls him closer, and she tries desperately to enjoy it while it lasts.
…
fin.