Pairing: Chuck/Blair
Summary: Once upon a time there lived a beautiful lady named Blair who was in love with a prince. It was as simple and as complicated as that. CB
Disclaimer: I don't own GG, or the song by Goo Goo Dolls.
AN: This is an AU so Blair is not pregnant but everything else happened. It's Blair's wedding day and she's finally living out her fairytale. But as our princess has once said, fairytales can be quite complicated. Most fairytales end with happily ever after but what happens when the curtain has closed?
-oo-
"When everything's made to be broken I just want you to know who I am…"
-oo-
Once upon a time…
There was man, in a dark grey suit and a bow tie, his hair a perfect mess, his eyes a dark threat. He stood a little separated from the crowd, in the background, in the darkness, completely oblivious to everyone but the dark beauty in a white dress. Usually he was very aware of his surroundings, a habit he picked up early on, something that came in useful for many of his scheming and plotting later on, particularly during the rebellious teenage years. But right now his eyes were focused only on her as she made her way down, surrounded by expensive flower arrangements and whispering of people she barely knows. It's a scene she's had in her head since she was only sixteen years old, even if she never admitted it to anyone, the one she recalled every time she said those three words, eight letters to him, every time they lay in bed together, his hands wrapped around her, a picture she cherished more than her precious scrapbook.
And here it was now, in Technicolor, right in front of her. The church, her in a white, custom Vera Wang dress with a carefully arranged bouquet of lilies in hand, with him waiting for her at the end. There's a smile on his lips but his eyes are tearful and it's all so very wrong she can't not to remember. This isn't her dream, it's the reality. A fairytale that became complicated, with a real kingdom instead of the Empire and a wrong prince she convinced herself was right. Her dark prince wasn't waiting for her at the end of the line - he was standing on the side looking miserable as much as he tried to hide it. He wasn't so good at pretending anymore and in the end, you could only keep up a facade for so long. She couldn't accuse him of not trying.
Last night when she went to sleep she dreamed he would show up at the church, too drunk and too loud, scoop her up in his arms and carry her out of the church despite her loud (faux) protests because he was always the one that made her face the truth when all she wanted to do was deny, deny, deny. His limo would wait for them outside and he'd lay her gently in the back and rip the white dress off of her as they drive away reminding her of the night after Victrola, reclaiming what was his once again.
Chuck did no such thing today, letting her live out her fairytale and break his heart in the process.
He stood by and watched stoically and there was something almost bittersweet in knowing that his eyes were burning holes into her back.
Only a masochist could ever love such a narcissist, she's once said.
He was no narcissist anymore but she sure was a masochist – marrying another man as the love of her life stood a few feet away.
He didn't stay long, when she turned the place he previously occupied was vacant. Nate disappeared soon after. She and Serena exchanged looks just as the priest asked the question.
Chuck, her best friend mouthed and Blair said I do.
-C/B-
After that things only got easier, louder as hundreds of guests filled the hotel's grand ballroom, leaving her no free time to sit, let alone think. But as the late evening hours turn into morning she finds a moment for herself, sits on the closest free chair, exhausted from all the dancing, posing, chatting. She lets out a sigh, closes her eyes.
There's tingling at the back of her neck that has nothing to do with poor air conditioning or the exhaustion and she just knows - he's here. Opening her eyes she sees him making his way through the crowd, tie perfectly nodded and she smiles tiredly.
There are no words. She doesn't confess she's already asked Serena three times if she's heard from Nate and if she knew anything about him. He doesn't tell her about all the bars Nate stopped him from entering, or how much it kills him to see her here. But he can't stay away, never could when it came to her.
"Dance with me?"
"Always," she says (hoping he knows if he asked for anything else her answer would be the same) and reaches for his hand, deliberately slow, easy, like she's done a million times before. His fingers are cold and trembling, but surely that was only her imagination. It was probably her own, she's barely had anything to eat. The ruffles of her long dress make noise as she stands up and lets him lead her to the dance floor as she holds on to the layers and layers of silk and lace.
Her Louboutins reach the parquet and he places his hand against the small of her back, pulls her closer, his eyes locked with hers. For a moment there is no movement, the two of them perfectly still in the middle of the dance floor, oblivious to their surroundings, to the music. Her hand is surely trembling now, holding his with unnecessary pressure. He makes the first step as always, unable to watch her anymore and see the regret in her eyes, the same he's been seeing in the mirror for the past year.
They dance like they did at the winter ball or at Lily's wedding - to everyone around them a couple in love, unable to tear eyes from each other. They don't see the little things he can't escape, no matter how hard he tries. The tremble of her lips, the tears in her eyes threatening to ruin her perfect make up, the ring on her finger. Yellow diamond.
Blair leans closer, lets her nose brush against his neck, closes her eyes as he feels the wetness on his shoulder, breathes her in. She hasn't changed her perfume.
Her smile is different, her hair, her eyes but she still feels the same in his arms, still fills perfectly all his empty spaces.
"You look ravishing Waldorf." A vision in white, he would say if he didn't find it so cliché.
"You're not too bad yourself Bass," she counters, gives him a small watery smile. He smirks, as if to say of course, did you expect anything else from him, even on this day.
His eyes say more (she likes to think there's an I-love-you somewhere between the I-want-to-kiss-you and I-wish-it-was-me) and her lips form those perfect three words, eight letters. She doesn't say it out loud but he knows. He could always read her well.
They don't say much at all after that. They pretend this is no different than any other occasion, event they attended together. They pretend they don't see their friends staring at them with hopeful looks (Serena looks positively giddy). They don't delusion themselves with romantic ideas of true love conquering all. They both know what this it. Them together for one last time. Their one last dance.
It all ends too soon, not at all how he planned. He wants to kiss her on the cheek, but she turns and it ends up somewhere in between as he feels the wetness and salt on his lips mixed with her cherry lip gloss. There are some things you never get over and he thinks this almost kiss with Blair Waldorf will always be one of them.
She did always leave him wanting more.
"Pleasure as always, Waldorf." he says and lets go off her hand, lets her go.
Before she has time to say anything he disappears, lost in the crowd.
…and they lived happily ever after.
-C/B-
Chuck Bass was many things, but he certainly wasn't the man who backed away from anything he truly wanted so today he went against his very own instincts screaming in his ear, as he let her slip right through his fingers, looking so small and fragile instead of scooping her up and carrying her to the limo despite the angry looks from the guests or her protests.
So that evening, finally alone in his penthouse, away from the prying eyes, he takes off his jacket, loosens his tie and picks up the whiskey because dammit if he doesn't deserve to get piss poor drunk after losing the love of his life (even the best of man can't get over that without a drink or two but he fears not even a million trips to Thailand or Prague will ever make him forget this) when the elevator doors open with a click.
It's two in the morning and he's pretty sure he'll fire Pierre tomorrow because he's specifically said he wants no disturbances this evening (or the next if his bar was stashed with enough alcohol - if not, he would definitely fire Pierre).
He goes down the hallway and seriously questions his sanity (maybe he should pay more attention in the future and actually read the labels on the stash he got from Mexico) because he surely is having hallucinations. The ones that feature a beautiful brunette in a Louis Vuitton dress with perfect brown curls and threatening eyes.
"Blair…" he says, smirk in place. If this was all a product of his imagination, why not enjoy it?
Blair on the other hand sees nothing amusing in it pushing past him as if she owns the place, the sound of her heels as they connect with the hardwood floor breaking the silence of the penthouse.
"How dare you Bass, be the bigger man, let me go? Don't I get a say in this? Don't I…"
His eyes follow her as she rants, a whirlwind of movement and he can't quite believe it, that she's here. He is still stuck on the whiskey and self-pity and forgetting he can barely say a word. How can I forget you when you're right here, how can I let go when you're so close I can almost touch you, he thinks but doesn't say. It's not what the old Chuck Bass would do, he would probably stand up a little straighter and say something like 'What is this about Waldorf?' Or was it Princess of Monaco, now?
She looks at him as if to say, don't you know? There's too much being said between the lines, too much unspoken. "What was with that kiss today?" she asks, straight to the point for once, after months of pretense and fake tact.
It throws him, her question. So much so that he can't quite compose himself enough to say anything mildly coherent. Surely they've done many more things that were far worse than what happened today and he couldn't understand why that would bother her so much. "It wasn't my intention to-"
"I was getting ready to go to the airport, to my honeymoon and all I kept thinking about was that kiss and how it can't possibly be the last one we ever share and damn it if it was then it needs to be better! That can't be the kiss I'll remember twenty years from now Bass!" she says in typical Blair fashion, almost commanding and damn if he hasn't missed it, if he hasn't missed her.
Still he is completely stunned by her words, unsure of what to say, so he says the words that were his mantra ever since he let her walk away with 'I will always love you' instead of a goodbye. "I was trying to do the right thing." He's not sure who he's trying to convince, him of her.
"And why would you of all people do that?" she asks quietly, his own words coming back to haunt him.
She looks at him and knows what he'll say. Because I love you. But he doesn't say it for that exact same reason.
"What do you want from me Blair?" he asks instead of an answer, spreading his hands in defeat.
She looks at him seriously, really looks at him like she hasn't in a very long time, like she's about to say something genuinely important that demands his full attention. "I want you to kiss me. For real. Like you actually care about me, like you actually want me, like you actually lo…"
Before she can finish her sentence his lips crash against hers so suddenly it takes her a second to react and when she does it's unlike any other kiss they've shared before. It's familiar in a way in which two lovers who've shared literary everything, been to hell and back, kiss. And it's also different, more intimate than anything they've experienced, passionate (because it's still them) and almost delicate in a way that only a kiss between two people that have been apart for too long can be.
Her hands, tangled in his hair become his undoing, small fingers curling up just above his neck, breaking the dam he's worked so hard to build. He lets go of the bottle of whiskey, letting it crash right by their feet and moves his hand to her hips, deepening the kiss, allowing his fingers to trace the familiar path, feeling her move against him, coming closer, filling every inch of space between them until there's nothing left.
It takes all he has to pull back (a kiss is all she asked for) especially when he opens his eyes and is met by her bewildered, dark eyes, swollen red lips and messy hair. She's a goodness wrapped in a small five foot four body. Blair bites her lip and he smirks, unable to remember a single reason why kissing her again would be a bad idea.
"What are we doing?" he asks, not used to being the voice of reason but unable to ignore the obvious question. "Don't you have a plane to catch?"
"I do," she says, standing still. "But I can't." a pause "Not when you kiss me like that, not when my heart screams every time I even think of leaving, not when I-" I love you. It's the only reason she needs. Only reason that matters.
It's not about the fancy castles, or royal dinners and foreign countries she could rule, servants she could order around day and night Not even walking through Versay and all those beautiful gardens could fill her heard as much as a walk down these corridors that led her to him standing there in a room filled with memories, good and bad but in the end theirs.
"But you deserve your fairytale."
"There is a reason they call them fairytales. They are not real. And I don't want to leave New York. It's my home. You are my home." (It wouldn't be my life without you in it.)
"What are you saying Waldorf?"
She puts her hand on his cheek, looking him straight in the eyes and asks "Do you feel this?"
"Yes," he whispers.
"This is real. We are real. And I don't want to give that up for any kingdom in the world. I can't."
He watches her but she doesn't as much as flinch. Even though there's a storm in those dark eyes weighing in on her very future, there's no hesitation. The decision is made. If she stays now this will turn into the biggest scandal either of them has ever been involved in and the images of all the newspaper headlines that she'll have to face and all the whispers and gossip runs through her head. Still despite it all she stays and gives him that wicked half smile he missed so very much.
This is Blair Waldorf doing the most dangerous thing she ever could.
He knows it is because he knows her well enough to know this is driving her insane. The thing Blair Waldorf cared about the most was her public image and that was about to go up in flames right before her eyes.
"Do you really want to do this?"
"I do," she says, no hesitation in her voice, as she takes of the gold wedding band and the heavy yellow diamond proving to him there was one thing she cared about more.
"I do too," he says in a low voice, lips curling into a smirk, as he gives her that sideways glance looking so much like a man in love that it makes her, Blair Cornelia Waldorf, a girl who's schemed a downfall of the most popular and richest on the UES without a single flinch, blush despite herself.
This was the two of them, doing what they did so long ago in the back of a limo outside Victrola, in front of Plaza in June, giving in to each other and to the force even stronger than they were. Love. And not just any love.
A great love.
(the end)