Title: Silk Lines
Chapter:
Seven
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Rating: T
Ship(s): nate/blair, chuck/blair
Summary: It's them together, as it should be – as it should have been years ago.

New York, New York; 2010

Nate smells the same. Blair remembers this as she walks by him, exiting the hospital room to take her final exam before Christmas break, relieved of the good news.

She can smell Nate's sandalwood soap, and the slight scent of mint toothpaste and that cologne he always wears. Maybe even a little trace of pot.

Blair subconsciously steps closer to him and feels the suspicious glance from her boyfriend land on her. Her back instantly tenses, and when she turns around to utter a goodbye, Chuck doesn't meet her eyes. But that's fine, Blair tells herself, because she does not dare to meet his either.

The candid realization falls in front of Chuck, his jaw clenches and his mind is suddenly remembering. She leaves before her heart starts to thud painfully and drop into her stomach. She knows precisely what he is recalling.

He's remembering a time when Nate proclaimed his undying love for her. When he'd found Blair in the Vanderbilt's balcony, when he'd said he didn't want her that way, but in the way she'd wanted him all along, when Blair had been the one standing next to him at prom, when Nate's eyes had told her he was the only guy for her as she was breaking up with him. Although no one else seems to remember Nate is her ex-boyfriend, her first love, Chuck remembers.

Blair remembers too.

Nate's scent still lingers over her long after she has left.

Bridgeport, Connecticut; 2014

Nate tosses and turns in his bed that night, regretting his decision to even sleep in the first place. He can't help but remember his bed in his Murray Hill apartment, how sturdy and well, sleepable it is, and how it's been that way ever since Blair had spent that one night in it.

His eyes immediately burst open at the memory as he thinks of the last time she'd been at his apartment; when everything blew up, when their fragile friendship had fell apart, and that look on Blair's face he still can't understand and has never forgotten.

A few hours later, during the early hours of morning, he sits with Chuck on the back porch steps. He learns that Chuck had restructured certain portions of Bass Industries since he'd seen him last.

"No joke?" Nate asks, as he gets a good laugh at the image of Chuck ruling the company just like his father would have.

The pain is still there though. That raw, hard throbbing that had established itself in the very depth of his gut three years ago. Except now, something else begins to take its place. Something hot and flaming.

Something like worry and shame.

New York, New York; 2010

"You're a dick."

Nate nearly drops the textbook he has been reading onto the floor. Today, Chuck is discharged from the hospital, so he is expecting some sort of celebration to arise, but suddenly nothing feels like worth celebrating.

"What are you talking about?" Nate half smiles, confused.

Chuck doesn't smile back, nor does he really reply, except to say, "I know what you did with Blair."

The golden haired boy frowns immediately, his charade has been discovered. He can't deny what has happened between him and Blair, and what else can he say anyway?

Nate busies himself with opening his bag and putting his books and papers away, hoping Chuck will not say anything further and let him leave without anymore grief. But he knows that Chuck is merely waiting for him to say something first before he strikes with his own bitter words.

Chuck looks like a ticking bomb about to go off, so Nate is afraid to ask him what he expects him to say. When he gets up from near windowsill, Chuck stops waiting and instead of anticipating what he'll spit at him, Nate speaks.

"Okay," he breathes out, as he bites his lip and sees the determination and anger cascade on the other man's face.

"I'm going to ask you this one time, and I know you owe me an honest answer," says Chuck, as he collects his belongings, his eyes narrow threateningly.

Chuck's glare is penetrating and despite feeling like he does not owe him anything, Nate finds himself nodding.

"Why'd you do it? Didn't you think I deserve better, I'm your friend." Chuck asks, his tone a little too desperate. "I was dying, Nate"

Nate almost wants to laugh because somewhere in his question lies the answer. But he can't say that because he is the one who promised Blair nothing would change between him and Chuck.

Or at least, he thinks so.

He hesitates, but decides that if he does lie, Chuck will definitely think Nate is the scum that he thinks he is.

"I don't know." Nate shrugs, frustrated beyond belief because he cannot bring himself to look at Chuck.

"I think you know exactly why," grunts Chuck.

His arrogant tone sparks something primitive inside him, a self defense mechanism that Nate had never known he possessed.

"Oh yeah? Well why don't you enlighten me, because I sure as hell don't know why I'd kiss Blair considering how I still feel about her. You're the only person that could ever understand – "

"You told me to man up, Nate!" He interrupts, dropping his things on the hospital bed.. "So I did and Blair realized who she was supposed to be with. Then she got upset and you took advantage of her vulnerability."

Nate is clueless to where Chuck and Blair's relationship stands at this point. Even a little more clueless as to what the other man truly thinks he did with his girlfriend, but Nate doesn't push it. Chuck may not have Blair now, but in a few weeks, when all this gets old, no matter what he says, Chuck will have her back.

"Blair moved on, and it's about fucking time you do too." Clearly Chuck's anger is beginning to dissipate, and his tone softens like his voice is about to break. "I don't care if it happened once, or twice, or ten times. Just go back to Columbia, and go back to rarely being around either of us, and go back to staying away from her."

It feels so ridiculously painful to hear Chuck say he wants Nate away from Blair, not because it's his honest opinion, but because it makes Nate's heart even heavier. He's been selfish all this time, focusing on Blair's feelings rather than being there for Chuck like he should have been.

"Merry Christmas, Chuck," says Nate as he takes his book bag and exits the room.

It's not until he trudges through the cold snow, and comes homes to an empty apartment, does Nate finally acknowledge that tiny voice inside him, the one that had told him all this would happen.

Bridgeport, Connecticut; 2014

"I wish you'd stay a little longer," comments Nate, as he and Chuck watch the driver load the bags into the back of the limousine.

"I have to get back to the real world," replies Chuck, climbing down the stone steps in front of the beach house, "not all of us can hide out here and run away from our problems."

Nate knows he should be offended, however all he can do it smile.

"You going back to New York?"

"Hong Kong, actually." Chuck answers, already beside the limo door.

He doesn't know what's going to happen now, or what all this means. All that Nate does understand is that he'll have to return to Manhattan soon, for more reasons than one now that he thinks about it.

Knots twist themselves into the lining of his stomach, tightening and burning.

"Are you sure you don't know where Blair is?" Nate impulsively calls out to the other man.

Chuck twists and squints up to look at him. "If I did, would I be here?"

They laugh, like two old friends reunited after decades apart, but the bile rises so quickly up his throat that if Chuck doesn't leave this instant, Nate is going to be forced to throw up right in front of him.

The minute he hears the screeching of the limousine tires fade away down the road, Nate throws open the front door and dashes into the bathroom just off the hallway, sinking to the cold tile floor and emptying what feels to be the entirety of everything he has eaten in a month.

He sits back against the wall with his head tipped up to the ceiling and presses the heel of his hands into his eyes, trying to halt the pressure building up behind them.

New York, New York; 2010

Everything clicks into place like clockwork, like the metal teeth of a gear winding into place when Chuck comes home from the hospital.

Blair looks into the face of a man she barely knows, once a man she knew better than most others. And she knows that this is Chuck Bass, and that he loves her in every way he's supposed to, but she is fully aware that he is going to say something that will fully tip the scales.

"Blair, you don't have to hide it from me anymore," he says hastily, taking a seat on the plush sofa across from her, "I know what you did with Nate wasn't right, and you're probably beating yourself about it, but I want you to know that it's okay – "

She feels it, the vibration from Chuck's skin transferring over the glass coffee table, and into hers.

"Chuck, what are you talking about?"

"You and Nate, you guys.." Chuck has a difficult time explaining. "It doesn't matter. I love you, and I already told Nate to leave us alone."

"It was just a kiss!" She nearly panics, ready to set things in their correct order. She can't believe Nate would leave the conversation to that.

Wait, what?

"You told him to leave us alone?" Blair questions, alarmed. Her head instantly turns to catch sight of a dark purple dress laid over the back of her vanity chair, a reminder of what had led her here now.

And suddenly she's swimming in memories of the deck on the Charlotte, the soft music echoing inside the cream coloured walls of the Modern, and then inside Nate's room, then couch, his lips on hers.

"Of course I did." Chuck sits up, articulating his words with more confidence. "I'm thinking of what's best for you."

For some reason that stings more that she thought words ever could.

Blair shimmies away from his gaze, moving further down the couch as if she's just touched fire. She watches him, studies him, uses her sharp eye to notice all the sudden changes in Chuck ever since he had emerged from the hospital; the slight widening of his shoulders, the faint darkness under his eyes now a little brighter, how he still looks so tired.

She ponders if Chuck knows what exactly she's thinking, because for Christ's sake, how can he dictate what is best for her, how has she let herself fall into this pattern in the first place.

The edges of Blair's consciousness grow hazy to the point where the pieces in her mind don't fit. They gradually begin to disperse, changing rhythm and falling back into an old one, a pulse, and everything else begins to fade into a white noise.

"You don't belong with Nate, never have, never will."

"I chased you for long enough, now it's time you chase me."

"Stop trying to play wife."

If Blair didn't know any better, she wouldn't be able to recognize the man sitting less than ten feet away from her. Right now, Chuck looks entirely like someone else.

She hears him groan as she shakes her head to stir the days old cobwebs, uncertain of what to do with this blunt, painful hit of nostalgia.

Blair looks at Chuck, wearing his neatly pressed dress shirt and slacks, and he instantaneously looks like her boyfriend again.

But nothing more.