"I remember DC/ I remember wanting you to laugh again / I remember how foolish I was"-Superchunk, "Foolish"
He lifts a forkful of risotto to his mouth and begins to chew. Almost immediately, he feels his gorge rise, and he forces himself to choke it down in spite of his incipient nausea.
He sets his fork down on the tablecloth. He hasn't been able to eat a full meal for several days.
There's a sort of cloud enveloping him. It covers him like a blanket. It mutes everything. The taste of food. His ability to think. Even the nettling voice of Lily's viper of a sister, he thinks, shooting an annoyed glance at Carol across the table.
It mutes everything but the pain. Weed's the only thing that really helps with that.
Underneath the table, he feels Serena nudge his knee with her knee, and he glances sideways at her. She gestures with her eyes towards his abandoned food, and a little furrow of concern appears between her eyebrows. He smiles at her sadly and gives an almost imperceptible nod towards her own untouched plate.
She gives him a little shrug. As if to say, you know how it is.
He does.
When Carol's voice rises in volume, he forces himself to tune back into the conversation; he tries to make some sense of the stream of vitriol that is flowing from her mouth.
Something about "that bitch Ivy Dickens." Something about her brainwashing Cece. Something about how they'd have to be insane not to contest the will.
"Or stupid," Carol hisses, giving Lily a pointed look.
Chuck frowns.
"Carol, do we really have to decide on a course of legal action right now?" Lily says. She is cradling her temple in her hand. "Because I think I've had enough trials for one week."
"The longer we wait, the more likely she is to take the money and run," Carol replies. "Is that what you want?"
"Of course not," Lily says in an exhausted voice, and she looks paler than Chuck's ever seen her—at least, since the night his father died—and he feels a sudden surge of ferocity on her behalf.
"You're the one who hired Ivy to impersonate your daughter in the first place," he says to Carol in his tone of deepest contempt. "You tried to scam the family out of millions of dollars. You're the reason everyone's in this mess. So you can just lay the fuck off, as far as I'm concerned."
Across the table, Erik shoots him a look of consummate approval.
Carol balks at him for a moment, blinking, then swivels her head to look at her sister. "Lily," she says in a cold, cordial tone, "can you please tell me what your ex-husband's son is doing here? We agreed it would only be family."
A loud CRASH suddenly reverberates through the dining room of the restaurant. Everyone is startled into open-mouthed silence—everyone except Lola, who lets out a little cry of surprise.
A shattered pile of glass lies in a puddle on the floor next to Serena's chair.
She is sitting there, frozen; her hand is still suspended mid-air, still curved in the shape of the drinking glass that slid through it seconds earlier. She is staring at Carol with fire in her eyes.
"He IS family," she seethes through bared teeth, as her fingers curl into a first. "Because he acts like family. Unlike some other people I could mention!"
Without another word, she shoves her chair back from the table (it screeches against the floor) and swings her purse over her shoulder.
"Serena," Lily says.
"I'm sorry, Mom, but I can't stay here with her for another second," Serena quickly explains. "I'll wait outside for you, okay?" She begins to walk towards the door.
"Serena, wait," Chuck says, and she does. He balls up his napkin and tosses it onto his plate. "I'll come with you."
"God, I hate her," she complains to him as they step outside the restaurant. "And after everything that's happened this week…" She shakes her head, overcome. "I just couldn't take any more. You know?"
Instead of answering, Chuck pulls a joint out of the inside pocket of his blazer and casually lifts it to his lips. He can feel Serena's eyes upon him as he lights it and blows out a little cloud of smoke.
"Wait…is that what I think it is?" she asks, conspiratorial glee in her voice. He doesn't answer, just shoots her a look and strolls off the street into the alley beside the restaurant.
"Give it," she orders him when he finally comes to a stop behind the dumpsters. She reaches out towards him with two fingers pointed into a V.
In response he playfully lifts the joint out of her reach and then takes another drag on it.
Serena rolls her eyes at him. "Puff, puff, pass, Bass," she recites with a little smile. "Remember that?"
He chuckles and hands it over. "How could I forget? I just thought you'd reformed."
"Chuck, I dated Nate, remember?" she reminds him, raising the joint to her lips.
"I never saw you smoking up with him."
She blows out a little puff of smoke. "And yet we were constantly baking brownies." She quirks an eyebrow at him as she passes him the joint.
"Aha."
"I stopped smoking junior year," she explains. "Because of Dan. He didn't approve."
She pauses. "Motherfucker. I was so stupid to think—"
She cuts herself off.
Chuck eyes her thoughtfully for a moment. "I could have him killed, you know," he offers.*
Serena huffs, and he thinks for a moment that she's scolding him, but then she says with an exaggerated hopeful sigh, "Could you?"
They laugh together.
"No, really," she says, grinning, and they laugh again. Uproariously. Already a bit giddy from the effects of the weed. And, standing there with Serena in an alley strewn with garbage and bits of waterlogged food, Chuck realizes that he can't even remember the last time he laughed like this.
It must have been back in high school.
"Remember when we used to get high in the darkroom sophomore year?" Serena reminisces, passing him the joint. She smiles. "God, we were such stupid kids back then."
There is nostalgia in her tone, but Chuck feels an unpleasant lurch in his stomach.
"Serena," he says in a slow, deliberate voice. He inhales on the joint, holding his hand over the lower half of his face as he does so. "I'm…"
He breathes out; he drops his voice. "I'm sorry about that, by the way."
"Sorry for what?"
"You know." He pushes his shoulders forward into a shrug. "Everything that happened. Before you went to boarding school. And…after."
She looks at him for a moment, her lips slightly parted. "I forgave you a long time ago for that," she murmurs.
He nods in acknowledgment. And gratitude.
"You know, sometimes I can't believe how much you've changed," she says, shaking her head as she lifts the joint to her lips.
Chuck swallows down the lump that rises in the back of his throat. "It was Blair," he croaks. "She's the one who changed me."
"No, Chuck," Serena contradicts him. "It was you. No one changes anyone else. Not unless they want to change."
"She made me want to change." His voice is bitter and cold. "To be a better man. And look what good it's done me."
"You don't have Blair anymore," she says sadly. "That's true."
He doesn't say anything. Just looks up at her with wounded eyes, and takes a deep pull on the joint.
"But you're still good," Serena says, her voice rising hopefully on the last syllable.
He is looking at her with belief dawning in his eyes when he spots Lily coming around the corner, and he quickly twists his arm behind his back to hide the joint.
"There you two are," Lily announces. She walks up to them, her heels clicking against the pavement. "What on earth are you doing standing around in this filthy alley?" she wants to know.
Chuck looks at Serena for help.
"Oh, you know…just talking," Serena says a bit too breezily. She steps forward and tries to take her mother by the arm. "You're right, though….this is a stupid place to stand around," she rambles. "Let's go."
Lily emits a knowing sort of cough and brushes Serena's hand off of her arm. "Oh, Serena," she says to her, amused. "You must really think I'm stupid."
She holds out her hand towards Chuck. "Hand it over."
"Aww, mom," Serena says in a disappointed voice, as Chuck begins to cough out an enormous cloud of smoke.
Lily waggles her fingers at him, and, eyes watering, he passes her the joint.
"You two really should know better," she says, daintily plucking it from his fingers.
Then she raises it to her own lips, and inhales. And they gape at her. Speechless.
"What?" she says, after blowing out an elegant, thin stream of smoke. "I followed a grunge band on tour during the early nineties. You can't honestly be that surprised."
They continue to stare at Lily in overt admiration as she takes another drag.
"Hey," Chuck suddenly says in a hoarse voice, having just realized something. "Where is Rufus? Jeanette at the front desk said he never checked into the Empire."
Lily's lips press together into a thin, angry dart. "He's staying in Brooklyn for the time being," she says in a short voice.
"I didn't know that," Serena says, surprised, as Chuck raises an eyebrow.
"We had a disagreement," Lily says, as if she's trying to end the conversation there, but they just stare at her—mostly because they're stoned, but also because they're curious, and she finally raises her eyes to the sky in exasperation and blows a another stream of smoke into the air.
"Let's just say that I did not approve of him actively encouraging his son to pursue a relationship with one Blair Grimaldi, née Waldorf," she says, crossing her arms over her chest. "Who not only has a complicated history with my son, but also happens to be my daughter's best friend." She shakes her head angrily. "I don't know what the hell he was thinking."
"You don't have to apologize for him, Mom," Serena says quietly.
Lily tosses the roach aside and steps closer towards them. She raises her arms; she sets her hands atop their shoulders.
"Listen to me for a minute," she says, lifting her hands to touch their faces. "You two are beautiful people. And if anyone out there doesn't realize how lucky they are to have your affection, your love…" She pauses. "Then they're aren't worth another second of your time."
Chuck opens his mouth to speak.
"They're not," Lily reiterates vehemently.
With a shiver, she begins to rub her shoulders through her rabbit fur coat. "It's cold out here," she says, and gestures with her head towards the street. "Let's get back to the Empire, shall we? Erik's probably already hailed us a cab."
"Okay," Serena says with quiet satisfaction, and Chuck agrees, "Sure," and together they walk out of the alley down the block towards the cab waiting at the intersection.
Midway there, Serena intertwines her arm with Chuck's. She twists her forearm up to clasp him closer to her; she lets her head touch down on his shoulder.
And Chuck thinks to himself with a smirk, wow. She really is high.
He kind of wants to make a joke at Serena's expense. Tease her, tell her she's a lightweight. But the sensation of having someone so close to him is nice, and he doesn't want her to let go of his arm just yet.
* He actually could.
A/N: Many thanks to my beta, Maribells. You should go check out her current multichapter, "Stay or Leave,"if you haven't already. We're both trying to deal with the fuckery of S5, but our stories are ultimately going to be very different, I think.
I didn't watch the episode last night (I would rather watch my parents having sex than watch Dan and Blair together), so some of this is going to be AU. I hear that Lola is acting like a total biatch, but she's not nearly so haughty in my story, although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her character yet. And Lily and Serena are going to be staying at the Empire. There is no way in hell Serena is going to stick around Blair's penthouse after Blair starts schtupping Dan Humphrey.
So apparently Blair suddenly decided that she wasn't in love with Chuck anymore, for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I am skeptical that the writers have any plans to try to explain this in a way that is remotely satisfactory, so I might try my hand at it in an upcoming chapter.
I am also planning on writing a chapter that shows the dynamic of pre-pilot Blair, Chuck and Serena.
Thanks for the reviews, guys, and keep the suggestions coming! It's times like these that we really need fanfic. :) And for comic relief, I also recommend reading the comments people leave on Gossip Girl's facebook page ("dans hair...wtf" was my favorite one today. Last I saw it had 16 likes.)