Title: Silk Lines
Chapter: Ten
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; 2011
When Chuck comes home New Years Day, he almost instantly collapses on the sofa. He doesn't move and hasn't looked at Blair yet. Hasn't laughed. Hasn't affirmed how his trip went, or what he did the previous night. He just lies on the cushions, feet crossed on the coffee table, taking deep breaths.
Feeling awkward, Blair rushes to the mini bar and pours him his favourite scotch. She tries to smile at Chuck as she hands him his glass, but he just look ahead, slouched onto the couch like he hasn't slept in days.
His scarf is askew. So Blair straightens out the leftward slant of Chuck's scarf so it lays perfectly flat down his shoulder the way it's supposed to.
She's stalling.
"Are you alright, Chuck?"
She misses him, she realizes as he laughs at his words. For a while, before being hospitalized, they'd been almost—best friends, just like they were before, maybe, well minus the sex. And then she kissed Nate, more than once, and somehow, under the guise of completely-not-affected-relationship, they've deteriorated to the point where Chuck won't even look at her most of the time.
"I'm great," he nods his head, then stops, pondering for a minute. "Is the urge to beat up the board of directors a good sign?"
"Chuck."
Blair turns her attention back to him, nothing the absence of his worry lines and crinkling brow that she hasn't noticed before now.
"We can't do this anymore," says Blair, feeling something deep in the dark recesses of her soul split open and bleed.
–
Bridgeport, Connecticut; 2014
Nate orders a beer inside the seedy bar located a couple of blocks south from the beach house. This usually isn't on his daily agenda, but Nate can't bring himself to stay home and suffocate in the stony silence, especially knowing what he knows now.
There's a man on the stool beside him that is radiating despair, but the place is so packed that he doesn't have a choice.
"You look like you've got a lot on your mind," the old man beside him says suddenly.
Nate's first instincts are telling him not to talk to this guy, cause yeah, he looks really sketchy. But Nate doesn't exactly have a lot of other people who he can talk about anything over with. "Yeah, you could say that."
"Girl trouble?"
Nate laughs and even he can hear the bitterness that instantly laces it. His chest tightens again, and this time it has nothing to do with Chuck's relapse.
The man drains his glass and continues, "she take off on you?"
"A long time ago," answers Nate, as he finally takes a sincere look a the guy, taking in the dark circles under his eyes and the thick stubble. He resists the urge to wince when he realizes that he looks just like him.
The man grumbles, gulping down his new drink. "What was your crime?"
"I not really sure," he says, sipping his cold beer, and then coughing because fuck, he does know why.
Maybe.
"I was never really sure what I did either," the man tells Nate, "Women are all the same."
The words hit Nate square in chest, like a full blown punch. There is something inherently sad and wrong about this man's generalization of women being the same. Blair's different, and that's all Nate can conjure up.
That's all he knows; it's everything he has ever known.
Nate thinks about Blair and all the conflicting, contradictory impressions he's grown of her ever since New Years several years back. By the time he is finished his beer, there isn't a single though in his head that doesn't have her in it. Hell, there's not a lot of his life that doesn't have something to do with her. It's always been about Blair. In some way, shape or form.
He had used to resent that, resent her as much as he humanly could without leaving her. Perhaps they had been the reasons he had always failed her.
–
New York, New York; 2011
"You're right," replies Chuck, leaning forward to face her, but can't bear to look up from his folded hands, "You're pretty predictable, you know that Blair?"
She hopes that's true, so that perhaps her actions earlier today weren't as much as a surprise; perhaps they didn't hurt Nate as much as she fears.
"I'm sorry," she answers.
There's silence for a moment when he looks at her. A moment ago, Blair had wanted him to, but now it's her turn to look away, because it's that look that he's been giving her for several days, maybe weeks now.
She's only sure it began after he figured out about Nate and when she had confessed about it. She isn't even sure what the look exactly is. There's some kind of brutal honesty etched into the way Chuck's eyebrows are pinned together, the slight crease of his forehead, the way he's biting his cheek like he's thinking too hard about her.
Blair finally regrets it.
"I know," he says, and it sounds true. He does know. Even is she weren't sure of that she can hear it in his voice; how tired she is. "It's okay, Blair."
She shakes her head. "No, it's not okay – "
He cuts her off, shaking his head and muttering 'no' under her breath over and over until his eyes snap open.
"Don't." Chuck breathes, one hand raking through his dark hair. "You know when I saw you walk into the hospital room with Nate, you looked … so happy, Blair. The happiest I'd seen you in weeks. And after my recovery I realized that I could have lost you – "
"You hadn't, you didn't."
"I want you to be happy, Blair."
The edges of her lips quirk and her eyes begin to water, and Blair is having a difficult time being able to tell apart her happy tears from her sad smile at this point.
"Me too." Blair answers, her shoulders tilt up in a lopsided shrug as Chuck sighs, blowing out a long breath.
For a second she wonders why he doesn't question her about Nate. Why he doesn't ask her to do what's right and pursue him. Her gut squirms because maybe it's not the right thing to do after all. Maybe she's just this shell of a person with so much left unsaid with no more words to wrung the thoughts out.
Blair stands up and brushes away the hair from her face, "I never lied when I said I loved you."
Chuck glances up at her, and she sees the finality in all his features. "I know."
Blair smiles warily, a genuine smile. It feels good, smiling knowing that at heart, Chuck is still Chuck. He looks at her like he's grown a second head, which only makes her laugh and then he joins her, their chuckles echoing off the walls around them.
–
Bridgeport, Connecticut; 2014
Nate hastily pays for his drink and runs out of the bar, filling his lungs with enough fresh air to force the stench of smoke and alcohol out of his head.
His mind swirls around the forlorn and lovesick impression that he has probably given off the past few years. But is he really any of those things?
He begins his march home, the summer sun setting behind him as he thinks about everything in as little time as possible. He thinks about the meaning of Chuck's visit, and his own rather unappealing appearance; about Blair and her whereabouts, and how he had failed to justify himself the last time they spoke at Tripp's congratulatory party.
As Nate turns into his street, his thoughts turns as well, to fireworks, and hospitals, and a dark purple dress.
–
New York, New York; 2011
Blair is at the party the night Tripp is elected into congress.
Nate is vaguely swaying his date as he slow dances her to the soft harmony of the violinist in the corner.
When he first sees Blair, dressed head to toe in a crimson gown, hair tied up in a fancy sculptural way, he immediately looses his footing. And when her sweet laughter drifts across the room, it slams into him, cutting through his ribcage with the intensity of an exploding landmine.
And as Blair turns and catches Nate's gaze, because she always seems to do that, New Years Day starts to flood into his vision from his memory.
Nate wishes he didn't know her. He wishes he could just watch Blair over the oblivious shoulder of his date, standing there, staring blankly at him, and not remember.
"Umm, I have to go tie my shoes... in the bathroom," he tells the woman he is half-halfheartedly with.
Nate knows he isn't making sense, but he can't stop the thoughts that suddenly invade his conscience.
He should have seen this coming, this epiphany of his, but he's been so elated for his cousin that Nate didn't even think of the ramifications of seeing Blair here... of ever seeing her again, really.
A surge of déjà vu hits him as he indistinctly recalls that she is no longer with Chuck.
"You always did clean up nicely," says Blair, as she approaches him, her eyes flicking up and down his frame.
Somewhere far off he feels the curious glance of his cousin on them, and that immediately forces Nate to turn up the corners of his mouth into something that isn't quite a grin.
He wishes he could smile at her.
"I have to return to my date," he replies heatedly, "she's perfect. She's exactly who I want to be around."
Blair gives him a crooked grimace, more resigned and defeated than any other Nate can ever remember seeing on her face, before departing.
He did this to her, but can she blame him? She's done a lot back.
And although the party is loud, he can still hear the clacking of her heels, and the breaking of his heart all over again.
When Nate returns, the woman asks if he's alright. He ignores her and wishes he didn't have to remember how happy Blair had made him feel when she'd said he was her boyfriend.
And when he takes his date home, he wishes that he didn't remember the days and nights spent in Blair's bed, drinking her in.
He also wishes that his sheets, including everything else he owns, didn't still smell of her. So that when he fucks, no – the woman corrects him, staring at him the entire time, make love – whatever, he can at least keep his eyes open. Do the whole romantic thing with someone asides from Blair.
And when he breaks up with that woman, weeks after, all that is going through his mind is that even after everything, he'll always know that he can't stay immune to Blair's magnetism.