A/N: Alright, all bets are off from here on out. I've tried to stay w/ the general outline of how the episodes were structured throughout this fic, but since I don't want it to end the same way 5x24 did by way of making Bart the bad guy, it's probably going to be very altered, cause when CB are reunited that's going to be IT. No more arcs. ;) Let me know if anything confuses you.

*I own nothing. No copyright infringement intended.

…

Ch.10—

The kiss escalated faster than she'd intended. It started before she'd meant it to. She hadn't meant it to start.

But she hadn't seen any of this coming. She hadn't seen this day or the day before it or the tension or the butterflies or the…

She just hadn't seen it coming.

But here it was, here they were, and before she knew it they were sliding out of their jackets and she was practically sitting on his lap kissing him madly like he was the only air supply left to hang onto. Her tongue twisted with his, their teeth gnashed against each other and her hands created a twisted mess in his hair.

She felt his hands roam over her back and felt the tingles turn into an itch in the melting pot between her legs. She ached for his hands on her bare skin and suddenly hated that she was only able to achieve that on her arms and neck and face.

More humidity suddenly enveloped her neck and she realized he'd pulled the pins from her hair setting loose her coiled up strands of hair. She moaned and pushed herself against him, finally straddling his lap and almost unconsciously unbuttoning the top two buttons on his shirt.

"Chuck," she whispered huskily into his ear before starting to nip down the side of his neck and like the spaces where her teeth had pinched.

She could feel his fingers at the hem of her dress and thought she was going to explode. It was so wrong, but she wanted to grab him and just tell him to yank it off and to get rid of his own clothing too.

Any conscience on the matter had completely escaped her.

Until Chuck's surprising voice of reason brought her to her senses.

"What about Dan?" he murmured, the side of his face pressed against hers as his fingers dug into her hips over her clothed dress.

And just like that the spell was broken. His love declaration hadn't broken it before, and neither had her sudden kiss. It was the reminder of reality, of what existed outside the garden they'd unearthed and past the wild lands where the brothel was stationed all the way back to Manhattan, back to Brooklyn and back to The Empire.

He brought it all back with that one simple question.

She froze.

"Blair?" he asked when she'd stopped responding. Very slowly she pulled her head back to look at him and he knew in that moment it was all over.

It was that heart-stopping, I'm-gonna-throw-up-any-minute kind of moments. It was that I-just-keep-putting-my-foot-in-my-mouth moment too. Except he hadn't been saying anything wrong, and he knew he had to ask. He couldn't let her have sex with him – no matter how badly he wanted it – if she didn't break things off with Humphrey first, and especially if she didn't plan on it.

He gulped, but pushed a strand of hair behind her ear though most of it was not plastered to the back of her neck. Their combined heat with the moisture of the room was turning them into melted goo.

"What is it?" he asked gently, though he knew very well what it was.

"I…uh…" she cleared her throat, trying to find a way out of this situation that wouldn't have her lashing out at him or denying what had just happened and that'd she'd enjoyed it. Because she had. She'd initiated it.

"Blair…" he said cautiously, wrapping a hand lightly around her waist. She tensed in his embrace and he tensed with her. It was as if his fingers couldn't decide whether to hold on tighter or completely let go.

She decided this would be easiest if she put some distance between them. She wouldn't bolt for the door though. That was just childish. And she had an inkling feeling that she might get lost, especially if she started raving about. Storming off in the middle of a steamy jungle didn't exactly sound like a good idea.

It was at this moment though that he registered her exact intent and tightened both his hands around her waist.

She struggled for awhile but finally realized he wouldn't budge until she verbalized something.

"Chuck-"

"Don't."

Her eyes flitted to his, having tried to avoid eye contact since he'd asked his fateful question.

"Chuck…"

"Don't do this," he said sternly, his fingers digging deeper into her sides.

She struggled silently a little while longer and finally gave up. With a huff and a sigh, she finally leveled with him.

"Can't we just pretend…"

"…this didn't happen?" he offered.

It hurt her more than made her angry and that made everything all the more worse, because he wasn't snapping at her he was just hopeless and heartbroken. It crushed her, completely crushed her, and if she wasn't so convinced that she had to leave, she would have abandoned her loyalty completely all over again.

She pursed her lips and held in tears she knew were her own doing.

"I can't cheat on Dan, Chuck," she said quietly.

He loosened his grip on her slightly, but not much.

"Cheating isn't just sex, Blair," he said, this time sounding a little irate.

She blinked and her eyebrows narrowed. She opened her mouth to spew some venomous accusations, but realized none of them would work. He hadn't initiated the kiss. He hadn't forced her to come into the greenhouse, the brothel, the hotel or even The Empire that day. It had been all her. She'd insisted on it all. And was she going to blame the sexual tension that had ignited between them on the other side of the brothel on him? –You're too damn sexy! It's your fault!-

Oh yeah…that would go over real well.

Suddenly, an idea came to her.

"You kissed my hand!" she declared.

He was so taken back by her strange accusation that he released her without thinking. His eyebrows fused and his head tilted to the side in question.

"You heard me," she said matter-of-factly, grabbing her yellow jacket haphazardly tossed to the side and tucking it between her arms and her chest as a sort of barrier with her arms crossed.

"What?" he asked, as if he hadn't heard her at all and was just voicing his confusion now. She held her ground though, so he stood to his feet, grabbed his jacket and walked to her, stopping just before the line to where she'd start backing away. "You wanna run that by me again?" he asked, now bordering amused.

Her lips parted, but she knew she couldn't repeat herself. His smirk was already making her blush. She couldn't believe this had been serious a moment ago.

"I shouldn't have to repeat myself," she finally managed, realizing as the flush covered her face that she felt even hotter with her hair down and cursed having let Chuck take the pins out.

Even in his amusement, he clearly recognized her predicament. He turned around to look at the bench and found the pins lying on the ground beneath it. He bent and grabbed them, then walked to her, past her initial resistance.

She tried to snap them out of his hands, but he held them strong. They fought a strong eye war for a few tense seconds but his words ensured her surrender.

"You're tense, Blair. There's no way you can manage to do your hair back up," he insisted.

She muttered something intelligible, because there was no way she could say it straight that she didn't want him to do her hair because then she might give in to him. She was so sexually aware of him, and to add to that as intimate and tender an act as doing her hair was…that was just a recipe for disaster.

But, somehow she managed and he circled back around to her.

"Better?" he asked, genuinely curious.

She hated that he was so…good.

"Good." He smiled and she knew the pitch was coming. "So, now tell me again."

She blinked, looking suddenly innocent. "What?"

He smirked. "You were blaming me for our hot make-out session because I-"

"Well, I wouldn't say it was ho-"

He raised his eyebrows and she rolled her eyes, muttering that it was indeed hot.

"-because I kissed your hand earlier," he finished.

She nodded once. "Yes." He stared her down again though and she caved. "Okay, fine, it's not your fault. None of this is. You're completely innocent in it all. Because you've changed. Because you're perfect. Because you didn't ask any of this of me, and I still-"

He grabbed her arms and held them stiff at her sides since she was waving them around so wildly he thought she might hurt herself. She was also talking at a speed that couldn't possibly be safe.

"Hey," he cut her off gently. "Breathe."

When he was satisfied she'd taken a satisfactory amount of time to catch her breath and regain her strength, he slowly released her.

"You still what?" he asked softly, picking up where she'd left off.

Her eyes flickered to his and panic raced across her face. He'd caught it. He'd caught it, and she hated it, because she must be so transparent to him and he was still making her say it and she couldn't stand it because this was exactly what she would have to deal with if she went back to him.

Not that she was even considering it.

Her eyebrows narrowed. "It's just the atmosphere, Chuck. It's just being close to each other in a life-threatening situation after being so far apart. It's just…familiarity."

He cringed, because familiarity was a word she'd used in the past with Nate and the safe choice. But now it was being attached to him and he hated that, hated her excuses.

"Is that what you plan on telling Dan when you tell him you kissed me and I was the one who had to stop it?" he demanded, quickly becoming angry.

She was getting angry now too. "I-"

"Or do you plan on blaming the whole thing on me?" he spat. "Same old, Chuck Bass, incapable of change."

"Chuck!" Her eyes widened, clearly having not expected this outburst. Now she could barely breathe.

"What?" he finally fumed, now furious with the situation.

"I…I don't plan on telling him."

He felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. She wasn't going to blame the incident on him, but for whatever reason she'd decided no one outside of the two of them would ever know. It would be as if it never happened.

"Why?" he finally asked.

"I think the reason's obvious, Chuck," she half-laughed.

"You think he'll break up with you if you do," he said.

"I know he will. After all the jealousy spikes in the last 48 hours-"

"Don't you think maybe he had cause for it?"

Her eyes narrowed. "What are you saying?"

He closed the distance between them. "You know what I'm saying, Blair," he said, making no secret of any of it. There would be no subtle, cryptic message left in his words when she finally left. She would know without a doubt just how straightforward his interpretation of the situation was.

"I'm afraid, I don't-"

"Why did you kiss me?"

"I told you. It was the atmosphe-"

"Why'd you come to the brothel with me today?"

"I was already at the hotel with Ivy and Lola. It just made sense to find out where they were."

"Why did you stay?"

She blinked. "I had to see what happened, to make sure everything worked out."

"Why?"

"Because I care about you."

"Why?"

"What?" she asked, trying to catch her breath from the fast-paced interrogation.

"Why do you care?" he repeated carefully. "Last I checked you and I were incapable of being just friends and that I was lucky to even get your help in this scheme."

"W-We aren't," she stammered, "and you were!"

He raised his eyebrows.

She sighed. "Don't make me do this, Chuck," she begged, because she knew she was unraveling.

He closed the distance between them and took her hands in his. He leaned close until his lips brushed the shell of her ear.

"Why?"

She swallowed. "Chuck…"

He pulled back to stare into her wide, brown eyes and the desperation that bore into their depths.

"There's something going on between us, and you know it."

She stared at him, unable to move, her heart beating a million miles a second.

"If you don't see it, you're not just lying to me or Dan, but you're lying to yourself."

"Chuck," she pleaded, her words barely a whisper.

"Tell me you don't love me," he said, and her eyes widened. "If you can say it, if you can flat out tell me that you don't love me, that you're not in love with me, and that you love Dan, then-"

"I don't love him!" she said suddenly.

His eyes widened and then became hooded as he slowly leaned towards her again, having thought he'd gotten his answer.

"But I don't love you either," she said just before he reached her lips. She wriggled out of his grasp and picked up her jacket from off the floor, stepping away from him. "I'm not in love with you, Chuck," she said roughly. Then she turned around and made her way back through the jungle.

He heard the doors open and close once she'd made it to the other side and knew she was really gone.

It took him longer to make it out because everything reminded him of her and her smell was all around him and just before he reached the entrance to the greenhouse, he noticed one of her high-heeled shoes sitting on the steps.

How very Cinderella.

He recalled how a similar instance had happened when Louis had returned and truly begun to court her. He didn't like that parallel either, but Blair had made it clear where she stood with him now, even if during parts of her defense she was extremely unconvincing. He couldn't change what she decided to believe. Only she could do that.

…

A/N: I meant for this chapter to have multiple scenes, but this scene has so much to it and the next development has at least a couple scenes involved, so I think they can go nicely into the next chap. Please review! ;) (Props to you if you caught the VD 2x01 throwback ;) The dialogue wasn't exact, but the situation's significantly different here, so I had to make some amendments ;))