Author's Note: I had the suggestion a couple of times to write another chapter from Chuck's POV, and I agree that it will make the story much more complete. I have sort of toyed with the idea of making it a multi-chap..but I think it actually is better alone. Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys - and I really do appreciate the fantastic response I got from Blair's POV! Also, thank you especially to Michelle, who looked both over, and suspensegirl for all of her encouragement! :)
Sometimes Love Just Gets In The Way, Pt. 2
God, was this woman beautiful. Warmth and radiance were exuded from her slowly ballooning form, and he could not help but want to take her – right there, in front of all of these people.
His wife's cropped brown hair glittered in the bright light of the ballroom, the diamond-accented bobby pins in her hair adding additional sparkle. Her eyes were coy, playful, as they bantered back and forth. Her hand was down on his leg, slowly moving back and forth in a tantalizingly teasing fashion.
Chuck found that he was completely, undeniably lost in his wife Caroline's company and companionship.
Yet, he was also hyper-aware of the pair of dark, chocolate-brown eyes that were staring jealously at them from afar. It was easy for him to tell at a quick glance (he couldn't get caught, of course) that she was burned from the inside out from seeing him and his wife together, talking so closely.
Chuck wanted so badly to look at Blair – to gaze at her the way he once had. But he was a torn man; he loved his wife, adored her more than life itself, and at the same time, wanted to go back to Blair because it felt as if his life's puzzle were missing a very important piece. He felt an overwhelmingly amorous emotion sweep through him at the sight of his six-months pregnant spouse, but when he noticed Blair, his stomach swooped inside of him, and the butterflies were awakened once more.
He no longer participated in the activities of a philander. Chuck Bass was a changed man; a man who stayed with one woman, and one woman alone. He couldn't find it in himself to carry on an affair because of the extreme guilt he knew it would bring.
And all this he knew as he strolled across the floor and asked Blair Waldorf to dance with him – his excuse to his wife being that she was "an old friend whom he just wanted to check in with." She, of course, graciously allowed it.
Chuck saw the extreme despondence in her eyes. He noticed the cautious way her hands were draped around his neck, and took note of the way her mouth had formed a thin line since they had begun to move on the marble floor. All he wanted was to kiss a smile onto the lips that had once been so plump and full of life. All he wished for was to breathe some exuberance into this Blair he did not recognize – a Blair whose eyes were dull and flat, and whose voice was full of falseness and cover-ups.
He saw the thoughts flashing by in her eyes. Chuck recalled a time when he'd been able to keep up with the numerous sentiments that whizzed by in front of his eyes, but by now he had easily grown accustomed to the habits and mannerisms of Caroline – habits and mannerisms which were so heavy in volume that they had caused him to be forced to erase the ones of Blair.
And, suddenly, she spoke to him.
"So, is it a boy or a girl?" The voice she inquired with made something low in his stomach stir – it was an unbelievably flirtatious and inviting voice, one that made him want to ravish her right then and there, irregardless of his wife. He felt a wave of shock shoot through him, but quickly recovered, mentally slapping himself ("you idiot, you've got a perfectly fine wife and child on the way. Stop this.").
"It's a boy," he felt an unexpected smile sweep across his mouth, and blushed slightly as he recalled an image of his wife, gorgeous as always, and undoubtedly pregnant.
"Congratulations!" she exclaimed, her eyes bright with enthusiasm – though something was off. There had been a time in the past when he'd have been able to recognize whatever was hidden behind her eyes, but at that moment, he found himself simply dismissing it as his imagination (though somewhere deep within him, he knew he was only pushing away the tugging feeling because he truly did know what was behind her eyes, and recognized it almost immediately as a cold, broken-beyond-repair, heart).
However, he only continued to appear oblivious to her. "Thank you," Chuck said in response, shooting her a small, shy smile. She suddenly seemed cautious being around him, and her eyes dropped to the ground, but not before their eyes met in an undeniably (no matter how hard he attempted to deny) intense moment.
"Could we...maybe...ahh..." he didn't know what was happening when the direction of their elegant waltz suddenly and abruptly changed. And then Chuck realized he was the one leading them to the other side of the gigantic room, into a secluded corner, away from everything. But what Chuck noticed was especially interesting about this spot was that they were very far away from Caroline. He didn't understand why, and didn't make the effort to try and make sense of his actions.
"Are you...okay?" he heard the question leaving his mouth, and saw his finger reaching out to bring her chin up so she was staring straight into his eyes – yet he found himself still not believing any of this was truly happening. He was not doing this; it was not who he was anymore.
But he loved her. Chuck loved Blair more than Caroline, that much he knew. And he had to confront these feelings, take care of them.
Shut up, you asinine bastard! He silently scolded himself, but the discipline he had been trying to force upon himself was rudely interrupted by a familiar stirring inside of him. It was something he had not had the privilege of feeling in – god, had it been fourteen years already? The long (he had hoped it would be forever) dormant butterflies inside of him had been awakened.
He felt the pull between them, the electricity he had tried to convince her of all those years ago. It felt like his heart was tearing in two when she broke away from him – when he lost that contact he had no idea he had been craving. She gasped out a "no" and ran away from him, and Chuck could not help but feel completely and totally confused at the gesture. He hadn't even said anything; what could have made her want to dash away from him so quickly?
...Unless Blair felt it too.
That was enough to make Chuck run after her at full speed, all thoughts of his wife and child out the window (he would later defend this as a heat-of-the-moment thing; a passion from long ago that had been re-awakened; though, he did know in his heart of hearts that this was a flat-out lie).
Chuck saw Blair slump against the wall, her body wrenching in all sorts of directions, her mouth agape in a silent cry of devastation. Her eyes were crumpled, and fresh wet tears streamed from the creases. He immediately went to her, kneeling down and nuzzling his face into the warm crevice of her neck. His lips ached for her skin, his hands burned to feel the silky strands of her hair; but, most of all, his ears longed to hear...
"Say it." Chuck heard a voice much like his uttering the words, but still could not fully believe it was him that was speaking them. He had a wife, for Christ's sake! He was perfectly happy. There was a kid on the way, a wonderful son he could play with in the way his father had never played with him.
Yet that moment, seeing Blair, the whole evening really, had impacted him. It had made him realize that the puzzle piece he had thought was so inconsequential and unimportant was, in fact, the most important of all.
It held true love, intense passion, and the pull of a thousand elephants. But it also contained a bitter regret (beneath the surface), an overwhelming guilt, and the taste of the future of negativity that awaited them.
"No," she replied. He was aware that she was not replying to his request – it was easy for him to tell, now that he had been around her more – but rather responding to their current interactions.
Chuck found himself drawn to her once again, and he pushed his nose into her shoulder, breathing in her memory-filled scent. In that moment, he wanted her more than anything. He wanted to lavish her soft, supple skin with kisses, and show her that he still felt the same way he always had - even if the feelings had been pushed under the layers of his enormous (he would not deny) love he felt for Caroline.
"Blair, I...God, I've missed you. So...so much." He felt his throat go dry, and the wetness from his mouth traveled up to his eyes, where tears fell without his permission. He pressed his now-wet cheek against the smooth warmth of her shoulder before he moved his face up so that his lips were touching her shoulder in the same place his cheek had been. His mouth moved to her neck, and then went down to suck behind her ear in the sensitive place he had once known so well. He'd thought maybe she wouldn't react the same as she had so long ago, but, true to form, Blair's head lolled on her shoulders and fell back, hitting the wall with a slight thumping noise.
Chuck took a chance, letting his lips follow the path that the invisible string between them was taking him on – a path that took his mouth down to the dip in between her milky-skinned breasts. He felt a tug on his hair and allowed himself to submit to her action as she pulled his face to hers, and placed kisses all around his mouth, but never on it. He felt an unbearable need to be impossibly closer to her, to be pressed against her – but, most of all, to be kissing her, their lips rough against one another, but softly passionate at the same time.
Suddenly, Blair broke away from him (resulting in a loss that burned like the pouring of alcohol on the cut of a sharp knife) and ran into the nearby ladies' room. He fought the guilt that was trying to worm its way into his soul, told the nagging voice in his mind to shut the fuck up already. And he followed her in there, ignoring all of the red flags and flashing lights that were going off around him. He should have left, and gone back to his wife.
But – he loved Blair. He felt this love that was so unique and unlike the love he felt with Caroline. It was a love that could be put through the ringer, but still managed to stay alive.
He stopped in his tracks when he heard her painful retches from ten feet outside the restroom. His comfortable stroll broke into a worried and frantic gallop as he ran into the bathroom, pushing the door open forcefully. And, he stopped again; only this time, Chuck chose to take a more lax approach and leaned against the doorway, watching her.
It seemed like they had been in the bathroom for days, her throwing up the contents of a thousand meals, him watching intently. He wished he could remove himself from the situation, watch her like she was an animal on the Discovery channel – but he just couldn't. His own stomach churned as he gazed at Blair Waldorf throwing up in a white porcelain sink. Chuck's throat burned, and he swore he tasted the rancid-ness of bile in his own mouth. Everything she was feeling at that moment, he felt too.
Chuck Bass had never felt closer to Blair – and the pathetic nature of the situation in which this occurred was definitely not lost on him.
And then, seemingly as fast and abrupt as it had started, the stream halted, and Blair brought her head up. Her eyes met his and the fire he saw behind them made him gulp (her ire and frustration frightened him, for it was much more heated than it ever had been).
"Why are you doing it again?" he was shocked, confused, and his voice reflected that. He knew there was the tiniest glimmer of concern there as well, but mostly, he found that he was astounded that a thirty-two-year-old woman who had long-since kicked the habit was picking it right back up again.
"Do I have a choice?" she exclaimed, though her voice had no volume since the sound had been taken away and swirled down the sink along with all of the waste she had dispelled.
He suddenly felt guilty, and he did not know why. "You've always had a choice, Blair," he told her, eyes coming in contact with the suddenly fascinating black-and-white tile of the floor.
"No, Chuck. I haven't. If I'd had a choice, I would not be here right now. I would still be with Nate, and we would be happily married. Because that was the safe decision, the right one. But my heart had to pick you to fall I love with! And I pay for that decision every goddamned day of my life."
She said the words with such vehemence that he felt as if all the wind and air in his body had been ungracefully knocked out of him. Blair walked to the wall opposite him, fear now slightly evident in the fiery sparkle of her eyes. Despite the words that scorched him like a first-degree burn, and the look in her eyes that bore a hole through his heart and soul, Chuck closed the distance between them and grasped her hands.
Surprise did not begin to describe the feeling he was overcome with when she spoke again.
"Please, Chuck, hear me when I say – I still love you, with all of my heart. And understand me when I tell you that there is not one sane part of me that wants to. Loving you all this time – while you're with her – has taken so much out of me. It hurts so much and I am just completely sick of it." Her eyes held nothing but an honest sadness, one that caused something inside of him to shift uncomfortably.
She told him she needed it to be as if they had never met, as if he had never even existed. While it hurt him, he knew that it needed to be done. He had caused her current state; he knew it was his responsibility to give her the peace to end it. Blair asked him to leave her alone, to cease all contact between the two of them. He noticed new tears on her face and brought his hand up to her cheek, touching her one last time before they extinguished this flame for good.
"I do love you, Blair," Chuck told her, leaning in to press his lips to hers and move their mouths together in the manner they had both grown away from, but was surprisingly easy to come back to.
When they pulled away – his heart giving a pang of disappointment and a sense of loss almost greater than he had ever felt with her – she looked up into his eyes with her doe-like ones. He couldn't help but want to save this memory, so that he could always remember the intensity of his first love, the love that never died, and would burn inside him even when he was six feet under.
"I love you too, Chuck. But sometimes..." Blair looked away from him, and he that this was every bit as arduous for her as it was for him. "Sometimes love just gets in the way."
She left him then, walking out of the bathroom swiftly (how could she leave like that?). His heart gave one final tug as he watched her retreating form as long as he could before the wooden door finally closed.
And then he felt the string that had tethered them to one another for an insurmountable length of time break.
End Note: Well, I am leaving for a week...so reviews would be an excellent welcome home present when I return!
