A/N: Just a long winded drabble so I can practice happy endings.

Warning: There's a good reason I don't write Chair.

xoxo

In the backseat of his limo, Chuck pours himself a drink. He doesn't really want it, but his stomach feels weird and fluttery. No, not butterflies. No part of his body has ever been affected by flying pests.

He must just be horny.

And desperate.

Because he's sitting outside Blair's apartment at midnight, hoping, longing, and so stupid he disgusts himself.

But they're friends now. And friends are allowed to have sex. Even if they're lying to themselves.

This friendship is an uneasy fit. It feels like they're both fighting too hard just so this shared delusion won't collapse.

Because if those delusions of friendship come tumbling down, he'll be forced to look at what it is they really feel.

Love, is the truth they're all expecting. They think if their eyes meet for a second too long that's what they'll find. And that's scary.

But Chuck's true fear is that their eyes will meet, hold, and there will be absolutely nothing left to see. And if what they have isn't love, that's terrifying.

If the feelings he had for Blair can simply cease to exist, with no trace left in sight, then they were never in love. And he knows, in every dark corner of his mind, that if he can't love Blair, he can't love anyone.

It's his father's fault. As an excuse it's used-up and dried-out from millions of disillusioned children, but it's still true. Clichés are cliché for a reason.

From the outside anyone would assume Bart Bass had loved Lily Van der Woodsen with a love stupid and unfaltering enough for any romance novel. But Chuck knows better.

At nine he'd found his father looking out the foyer window. A glass of liquor steadied in one hand, his eyes a sickly red.

"What's that in your hand?" Bart demands.

Chuck holds it out. It's a picture of a playground, all awkward lines and wrong colours, but he loves it. "Nate drew it for me."

Small lines appear between his father's brows as he studies the drawing. The frown deepens when he meets his son's eyes. "The Archibald kid?"

Chuck just nods, folding the paper in his hands and moving it behind his back.

Bart snorts, lips tilting into something resembling amusement, eyes fixing intently. "I know his grandfather." William van der Bilt had sold Bass Industries three hectares of unusable land. In a ridiculously over-sized manor, William had handed Bart a tumbler of brandy and smiled warmly. Minutes into the conversation Bart had been too furious to pay attention to the words. William would buy the land back at eighty cents to the dollar. Bart Bass was being robbed. But what could he do about it? Every priceless heirloom, that unwavering smile, the my brother tees off with the governor on Thursdays—it all said one thing. I have connections. My very name has more worth than your bank account could ever hold. I am the immovable object, and there are no paradoxes.

In the end Bart had shaken his hand politely, and ignored the condescending look in William's eyes that suggested he ought to be grateful.

"They'll never accept you, you know. It doesn't matter how much money you make. It doesn't matter if you could buy them ten times over-it'll never be enough. They'll always remember that when their grandfathers were sitting pretty on their plantations, yours were working them. In the end, you won't even be a blimp on the radar."

Chuck had heard it all before. Would hear it all again.

They lived on the Upper East Side. Everyone had money, so it meant nothing. But not everyone could trace their origins to the Mayflower. For the rest of his life, his father told him, he'd have to fight twice as hard to gain half the respect.

This was an old-money world—they just lived in it.

Their rules, their standards, their judgements, it would never apply to them.

You have to be a part of the hierarchy to topple gracelessly to the bottom.

But Chuck isn't convinced, The world can't be that simple, can it?

"Serena's dad left and no one cares." No one but Serena and Eric, of course.

Bart gives him an even glance.

Chuck knows calculation when he sees it. It makes him uncomfortable, makes him wish he'd never opened his mouth.

"There are always exceptions," Bart murmurs, voice gone soft with thought.

His father turns away, a clear dismissal.

Chuck watches the world, and always his father's words are there, tinging the world in black and white, cynicism leaching away all greys.

Blair's dad leaves, male model close behind. The world doesn't blink. It never expected better from new money.

The Captain falls, and the Archibald's go down hard. Their world has crumbled. They might get back up, but from that moment they'll stumble on unsteady ground, and no one will dare offer them a hand.

Serena's threesomes end with body bags. Lily divorces a third husband. The world holds its breath, but the Van der Woodsen's shrug, keep moving, and the world forgets in a toss of golden hair.

Bart marries Lily.

Chuck wants to believe that his father is not a soulless beast. That somewhere, there's something worth loving, something capable of love.

But there's a voice , hateful with taunts, that tells him Bart is only trying to capture lightning in a jar. That he's trying to bottle up the Van der Woodsen gifts: blue blood and feet that people refuse to believe are made of clay. Magazine write-ups coo over the beautiful romance and Bass shares almost double in price.

So when Chuck says those three little words to Blair, he has to wonder what it is he truly loves. Is it Blair? Or is it the queen of the Upper East Side, so perfect and brilliant no one would dare point out that her family was wealthy through work, of all things?

The car door slams.

Chuck takes another sip, because the fluttering in his stomach just got worse.

"It's late Chuck." Blair rubs her hands together, blowing on them in a futile attempt for warmth.

Chuck looks at her appraisingly. She's perfect white skin, whiter teeth, hair jet-black in the darkness of the limo. His gaze drifts past her to the snowy streets

When he says nothing she continues impatiently. "I have an early class tomorrow."

"Then why'd you come?" He meets her glare evenly.

Blair shakes her head slightly. "Because I don't know how to stop." Her tone is frustrated, raw with the sort of honesty that refuses to be ignored.

Her eyes are warmest bistre, cheeks pink with cold, lips tinged blue just from the shortest walk to the car. It hurts when she's near, when he's forced to see too many colours. But it hurts more when she's gone, leaving him in the black and white world of his father's making. He tugs one hand into his, twines their fingers together so she can't pull away.

"Good."

Blair squeezes his hand with a tentative smile.

In the end, does it matter? If his father married, hoping for a clever alliance, he must have been disappointed, because not even a Bass is immune from Lily's charms.

"I never want you to stop," he says seriously, pulling Blair to his lap.

And he's certain it doesn't matter. Maybe he fell in love with a headband-crown, but it doesn't matter why he loves her. It's enough that he does.