Author's Note: This is my response to the prompt for the first day of the second Chair Week on tumblr, wedding night.
The lights of the city he loves, the city he has called home his entire life cast a soft glow through the windows and illuminate his path back towards the woman he loves, the woman he will call family for the rest of his life. The steady rhythm of her heart, of her chest expanding and constricting with every breath marks the passage of time, and he cannot help but watch her for just a moment.
Her eyes flutter as she moves her leg under the duvet and then close as the sheet tucked under her arms slips just a tiny bit lower. The diamond headband serving as her crown was tossed across the room in haste, and the complicated arrangement of her hair has detangled during the night. And now the simple movement of her leg causes her brunette hair to skim across her shoulder as it falls from framing her face to the pillow behind her head.
He hastily pulls on his pajama pants and moves to join her, moves to complete the scene he knows will occur every night for the rest of his life. He peels back the covers, carefully slides into the bed so as not to wake her, but the pull is strong and he cannot help it as he reaches out and traces his fingertips against her bare skin.
The touch is light. Meant not to awaken or arose her but to remind them both of the connection they share, of the electricity to passes between them at even the simplest of touches. But she stirs at the touch, stirs at the feeling of cool metal pressing against her skin. She curls her own hand under the sheet and feels the heavy weight of the Harry Winston diamond and the lighter weight of the serpent ring from the MET on her finger.
"Hmm," she murmurs at his light, repetitive caress.
Chuck's lips press against her shoulder in response and connect with silky hair brushing across silky skin. Her husband's fingers leave her arm to brush the hair away from her neck, and her eyes open at the loss of the soothing coolness his fingers bring to her heated skin.
She turns onto her side, turns into his embrace to bury her face into his chest with a groan. A small chuckle of amusement escapes her lips when her cheek meets fabric rather than skin. Chuck gets cold whilst sleeping despite the heat of their earlier activities, and that fact has not changed in the months – years – since they last shared a bed. She slides her hand around his waist and pulls herself closer to him, draping her right leg over Chuck's left leg in the process.
"Good morning, Mrs. Bass," he whispers before placing a kiss against the crown of her head.
She shakes her head against his chest and groans in protest because it is far too early in the morning for any kind of salutations. The anxiety over Chuck leaving for Moscow, the announcement of his presumed death, and then Bart and their frantic escape culminating in a wedding has led to nothing but fitful sleep in the last forty-eight hours, and all she wants to do is lay her in the embrace of her husband and sleep for at least eight consecutive hours.
But the world has kept on spinning and the never ending news cycle has moved on from the revelation of the anonymous Upper East Side blogger's identity to posting photos of their wedding and speculating about their motives. The Spectator tries to maintain a level of respectability, tries to keep above the fray and channel its attention towards Gossip Girl because Nate is their friend and he's happy for them. But the board members of Bass Industries will call an emergency meeting in the morning in order to debate a vote of no confidence after opening their morning papers or logging onto the internet to read that the New York Post as dubbed them the new Bonnie and Clyde.
And not even he could ignore the blinking of his phone in the puddle of clothes on the floor when he left their warm bed to change. He knows what people are saying. Wishes he could hold her and ignore the malicious lies being spread about them on the internet, ignore those out there who try to rob them of their power behind a veil of anonymity.
Because their marriage may have been hasty and the timing may be questionable, but he did everything he could to provide Blair with flowers and a dress and proper wedding surrounded by the people who love her because he loves her. Because they may have been outlaws, but marrying her has been years in the making.
"Blair," he says softly, lowly in her ear. Her eyes flutter open and then they close as she tries to bury her head further into his chest and ignore the words trying to awaken her.
"Sleep," she mumbles against his chest when his fingers begin to trace each and every vertebrae of her spine. He repeats her name, and the twinge of anxiety laced around each syllable causes her to lift her head and look at him with concern in her eyes.
"You know this marriage is real, right?"
"What?" She questions because the words sound odd and she wonders if maybe the haziness of her sleep deprived brain is addling her understanding.
"I would have married you years ago. You know that, don't you? What happened on the roof with – it sped things up, but I've wanted to be with you, be your husband for years."
She holds his gaze for a moment, blinks back the sleepiness she feels as she tries to find the words to reassure him. She knows all of this. He held onto a ring, onto the idea of their relationship and nearly died over it. And then he held onto them even when she was lost, when she lived with one foot in another relationship unable to let him go.
Because she loved him – she's always loved him. And now she's Mrs. Bass and she's all in and it doesn't matter that their wedding was hasty because her answer will be constant for the rest of their lives.
"One word, three letters," she replies, repeating her vow to him at the Bethesda Fountain back again. Her hand reaches up to stroke his cheek, to touch his neck until he visibly relaxes under her touch. "And three words, eight letters."
And then she presses her lips against skin on the underside of his jaw, presses just the lightest of kisses before he drops his head and meets her lips with his own. But she allows only a brush of a kiss before she pulls away, before she turns her attention to undoing the buttons of his pajama top. Each button slips through the buttonhole in excruciating slowness, but his tested patience is rewarded with the sliding her warm hands against his chilled skin and the feeling of her soft lips against his sternum.
"I would have married you at a county courthouse in last night's dress without any flowers and cake from the donut shop down the street," she reminds him. "But you gave me a wedding with flowers and a beautiful dress and my mother, Cyrus, Serena, Dorota – our loved ones – in attendance. And it was better than the one I dreamt about as a little girl because I married you, because I finally became Blair Waldorf-Bass."
Her hand slides under the waistband of his pajama pants, slides down until she can stroke and touch and caress him for just a short, teasing moment. She scraps her rings against him in the process of retracting her hand and smirks as his jaw clinches, as he reacts to her. And then she moves her hand up his chest, slides it up to cup his cheek and stroke his jawline with her thumb whilst the fingers on her other hand teases the hair at the nape of his neck.
"For once, let's not worry about what's being said about us on the internet," she says as she presses another kiss against his chest, against his Adam's apple, against his jaw, and, finally, against his lips. And he's about to nod his head, about to roll her over and show just how much he agrees when she breaks away once more. "We know the truth. We know that we are Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck. Our love may be crazy, but it is a great love – a real love – and what people say isn't going to change that."