20. Prometheus

The dawn light was opalescent, whiting out even the stained glass of the highest windows by the time Chuck woke, tangled in every way possible with Blair's head caught in the crook of his arm. She appeared to be puzzling over something, nose wrinkled, brow furrowed; he passed his hand over the latter, erasing the lines like a hot iron on linen, and she made a disgruntled noise and snuggled closer into his side. Examining the press of her forehead against his ribs, he reflected that he'd been practically swarthy upon arrival in the city, but the cool of New York meant their skins were now almost of a shade – though he could never be as fair as she, she who slathered on rosehip and lemon balm to whiten every inch of flesh – and the similarity pleased him. They were both dark haired but hers shone black sometimes, they were both dark eyed but his verged upon hazel whereas hers were the deep colour of polished wood. They were two of a kind, or maybe even one distilled into two forms. It had certainly seemed that way over the course of the night, barely ever parting but beginning each act where the last had ended in a limitless run of pleasure – but was it pleasure, exactly? Pleasure could be given by anyone, to anyone, while the sensations passing between them had been enough to collapse lungs, break bones, spill blood. They'd snarled and torn at one another, held and soothed each other, exchanged reverences so slowly that the only precursor to climax was the black hole in the centre of each eye. He found he had no breath when she looked up at him, innocent and open and trusting, telling him to guide her, to teach her all over again.

Love was a strange thing, thought Chuck, though it still appeared as if he were ready to die from or for it.

"Blair."

"Mmmm…"

"Blair."

He tried to shake her but she only assumed a sleepily wounded expression and rolled over, lying on her front with hair falling everywhere and obscuring his view.

Bitch.

Contemplating her smooth back, he decided not to leave a note, since he would be returning presently.

There was just something he needed to retrieve from his safe first.

Birds were singing, which was peculiar in a city that was barely stirring with mercifully opaque ice coating the sidewalk. Chuck had pulled on his clothes in slow motion, stealing glances towards the tumbled bed – a blushing cheek, the curve of a brow, a visible pulse beating in puffy cerise lips – between layers, preparing himself for the cold outside despite an immediate desire to crawl back between sheets heady with body heat and sleep all day beside Blair, to feel her little naked feet press unconsciously against his legs and to see her reproachful mouth when he attempted to wake her once, again, again, unnecessarily provoking her until she beat her fists against him and sunk her nails into his spine. Blair soft, yielding, needy was a wonder to behold, but Hell had no fury like Blair Waldorf when beauty sleep scorned her. Actually asleep, however, she looked as seraphic as so ruthless an individual could, and Chuck declined to disturb her when he had business to attend to back at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Her grandmother's muslin gown had slipped onto the floor, and he laid it over the foot of the bed and left through the greenhouse's lift up panel. He would make sure that was boarded up, and soon, especially if certain persons there present might move 'upstairs' to satisfy the wishes of a lover. Upstairs would have to be on this hallowed avenue, of course, with staircases wide enough for grand descents and a conservatory to rival even the late Harold Waldorf's…but upstairs would come later.

It was too much to taint the frosty air with tobacco, so instead Chuck gnawed on the stump of a cigarette to counteract the shaking of his hands. It was cowardly and humiliating to boot, but the fingers locked with Blair's the night before had been anything but steady.

"Damn it," he swore, and lit the smoke.

For several minutes, Chuck leaned against the railing of the Archers' house and exhaled his nerves. He'd kept her stack of forbidden letters on his person so long, and then locked it up when all seemed hopeless; the same applied to the diamond that had cost him all he had at the time, with no way of earning more. Now, he could have spent more and bought ten, twenty rings with flawless canary yellow carats to match her new favourite heirloom, but the stone his bleeding palm had marked upon first rejection was still the one he wanted to give. It was a reminder of the rewards of toil, the importance of perseverance: that in the face of true love, you didn't just give up.

Even if the object of your affection was begging you to.

Ash fell from the ciggie's fiery tip, mingling in grey with the white snow and ice. The sun was strong, even so early, and the pavement cracked as Chuck began to move again, discarding contemplation with the butt flicked away from him to sizzle and die in sleet.

What made a man, exactly, the pieces and forms: this morning it felt as if his ribs were shifting, lifting, caging his restless heart to keep it safe. His strides grew longer, almost to the point of sprinting, and blood roared between his ears. He could feel the fading reminders of Blair's kisses on his mouth, on his face like electricity which drove away the freezing temperatures and made it hotter than Hell inside his chest. Where could the dark things go now, now she was light, now she filled him from top to bottom and beyond his brain and the butterflies in his stomach? He would have to find new homes for his doubts, for his fear, for the stabs in the gut of envy when she was with Asher Hornsby, with Eric van der Woodsen, both permissible though he would never again countenance her tormenting him with Louis Grimaldi. The celebrated Mrs Blair Bass would rest her fingers on his arm now, would raise her chin towards him and expect the first dance before he'd even offered it. She wasn't one for exclusivity, she would want to wander and be admired, but he'd watch. He'd grip the nape of her neck with gently sadistic fingers when she flirted too hard just to be a tease, and she'd melt. She always melted when he touched her there, and even the white flash of it from across the room was enough to drive his teeth together and up into his skull.

There were no longer any words for his sentiments, his feelings.

All he had left were actions.

"Mr Bass," the desk clerk greeted him obsequiously. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Dexter." And surely he could even afford to call the staff by their names on such a day. The clerk looked ready to fall off his seat, and his client grinned at him like a man possessed.

The elevator attendant had a name, but Chuck didn't know it, so he tipped him enough money to purchase a small diamond or a very expensive hooker instead. He was aware he was behaving oddly but also of how enjoyable it was, his waistcoat buttoned over the flannel shirt he'd first disdained but now loved quite dearly. It was a mania to love, you believed you loved everything until you returned to that which you loved the most and realised you could never love anything but that, not ever again, not as long as it lived and breathed or even after. As such, his plan for the day consisted of proposing, being accepted and then finding a dozen different ways to make Blair Waldorf's toes curl before lunch. There would be no time for simply watching her lie still and doze again, though he fully intended to make her drape herself over a chaise longue one day and have somebody paint her. The arch of her lips he could capture himself, in infinitely satisfying ways, but to have them immortalised would be enough for the hours they would have to spend away from one another while things were planned and bought and paid for and she denied him, as she undoubtedly would, remaining as chaste as was humanely possible until God Almighty had sanctioned tertiary consummation.

Chuck set no store by God, who only entered virtuous bodies.

He liked to be the one doing the entering.

That thought was pleasant enough to dull the sound of the door of his suite swinging shut behind him, but then a wisp of a raven clad figure slunk out from behind it and bent her knees in an overly respectful curtsey.

Jenny.

"This is…unexpected."

His erstwhile pupil declined to answer. Her bare white arms were almost skeletal, tendons popping, and her cheeks had fallen backwards into her head. She almost skipped as she performed a small circle around him, then announced, "I can smell her on you." She giggled inexplicably, black lined eyes too large for their sockets and blue hot as they rolled. It was like standing close to an animal in a cage, an animal that looked as if it might snap. "Was it everything you ever dreamed? Every night when you were alone, every night when you knew she was mere feet away, wearing next to nothing…" Her teeth gleamed in an bestial smile. "Did she smile, Chuck? Or did she scream?"

Chuck hadn't felt the lack of fire until she stood before him, and now he was chilled and icily furious. It roiled within him, as if the butterflies had become snakes at such an affront to their existence. Jenny Humphrey knew nothing about them and what they'd created, and what had been created in her former workplace only the night before. She was poison, and he was ready to spit poison. "If you know what's good for you, you won't talk about her in that manner. I stand by what I said before, and what I say now is just as true: if you slander Blair, in the tabloids or in my hearing or the hearing of anyone who matters, if you damage anything of mine, then there will be no hand feeding so you can bite it again. The whorehouse will be the highest you can aim for. So don't dare to talk ask me about what she does and speak of her as if she were a –"

"Slut? Tramp? Oh, but that's precisely what she is." Her Fabergé blue gaze was bright with glee. "She rode you and dug her nails in so you'd dance to her tune with no choice in the matter. I, in good conscience, cannot let that happen."

He started towards her, but she stepped to one side.

"You wouldn't hurt me."

"A quick death wouldn't hurt you, only hinder your tongue."

"Proud and protective, such wonderful traits in a partner." She lit one of her dratted black cigarettes and exhaled with calculated languor, red lips curving and grey smoke curling. "Traits which Blair Waldorf has had enough of for one lifetime, don't you agree?" Jenny advanced, black lace falling like a spider's web around her feet, no fear on her face in response to the rage that had immobilised Chuck's. "You're out of the game," she whispered. "You won't admit you fucked her because you want to do it for the rest of your life, but I want you, Charles Bass, for the rest of my life. And I know you don't love me, and I know I'm making sure you don't by manipulating you like this."

"Like what?" He managed, fists clenching rhythmically as he fought the desire to throttle her.

"You already know." Red, grey, black, white in her face and mad eyes. "You're going to marry me, and you're going to love me one day because you and I are destined, cut from the same cloth, the he and the she of the same creation. But until you do love me as I love you, you're going to marry me because if you don't, I will tell. I will tell every last man, women and child with influence and a name or money and a name or a blabbermouth and a name that the woman you do love is no virgin, and she has no way to disprove it. She can't submit to a medical examination, but refusing to do so is suspect. No one can deny she's spent time with many different men of late, trying to plot against or thwart you. She's so neatly stitched up into this mess that if you had any self-respect at all, you would have bagged her and thrown her into the Hudson to drown, since death would be better than disgrace for a girl like that. There is no way out of this for her. There is no way away from this for you."

The pain was too deep to even consider facing, the anger so violent and the hatred so vehement that he knew even a single step would lead to little Jenny Humphrey's neck being snapped, little Jenny Humphrey who had clutched at straws until she could touch the stars with them. The idea of setting aside the love of his life to marry this fiend was laughable, impossible, and it slowed his body to a crawl. Numbness settled over Chuck, wrapping its deceptive arms around him to protect him from the force of the blow, and what would follow: heart attack, aneurysm, seizure, unconsciousness. It was as soft as the snow, and it settled upon him just as tenderly.

"Oh, precious." Her fingers stuttered over his frozen mouth. "Can't you see it's for the best? I'm the best for you, and the best thing you can do for her is act like you got what you wanted and that's that. We don't want her running off to the Five Points for another attempt at purification, do we? Better she has to bind her heart back together than her legs." She stroked his bloodless cheek. "Doesn't she deserve a chance at happiness without you? Or would you rather she burns?"

She manoeuvred him to the writing desk. She made him sit.

She worked him like a puppet.

Yet Chuck was not cowed by her, was not afraid of her. He would be the one to save Blair as he had saved her from the wretched places of the city before, although he would have to go about it in a manner that would break and end them both. When she hated him, then she would be safe. Then he could spy on her from around corners, and die observing the man she married and the children she bore, and she would never know that he loved her the most, more than that man she'd chosen, enough to commit the worst atrocity, enough to carve out her heart if it meant she would no longer care for him and be in danger. He was truer in his passion than any man alive, and more twisted by it – and he was weak, because no cost would be too great to bury himself in the sweetness of her hair one last time. Even one last smile would be enough, one last look as she slipped behind the velvet curtains of the life she deserved. Why had he not woken her so she would smile? Why could he barely remember the last time he'd seen her smile, his mind filing it away as unimportant though it was the most important thing in the world?

He put his pen to paper, and with three lines he killed them.

Jenny sighed and touched his arm, and the limb spasmed without volition. He pinned it to his side with the other, squeezing his ribs until they groaned.

"I thought…"

"We're to be married," Chuck said flatly. "That makes you untouchable."

"But after?"

"That makes you untouchable," he repeated, and then gave himself over to darkness.

~#~

Blair woke with the aroma of earth in her nostrils, fresh and primal. She felt primal too that morning, and a small growl escaped her as she rolled her shoulders and something popped back into place. She wriggled experimentally, and was unsurprised to find the bed empty. Chuck was Chuck, and not himself without a three piece suit unmarred by damp and creases. He would find her, perhaps not even today, but soon, and then the chips would fall. They would fall in her favour, of that there could be no doubt. After all, love was a glorious thing, and she ached from it both in her body and in her soul.

"Chuck?" She tried, just in case.

"Miss Blair?" Came the harried reply.

The sheets churned as Blair kicked her legs in a bizarre kind of guilty bliss. Let Dorota see, let them all see. Let her be wheeled out like an exhibit, the Wanton Socialite, so all the so-called great and good could peer at her and exclaim at her wickedness. Let them pay a dollar for the privilege of mocking her pleasure only because they were too shrivelled to get any for themselves.

"Miss Blair!"

"Dorota."

"What has happened to you?"

"I," Blair proclaimed. "Am in love. And I'm famished, so you need to bring me a plate of something and draw me a bath."

"In love?" Dorota repeated, as if she'd never heard of such a thing. Then her brows drew together. "Has Mister Chuck been here? You know, here. Here."

"Yes."

"When did Mister Chuck…leave?"

"I don't know, I was asleep."

"And you let him go?"

"I was asleep, Dorota."

"Miss Blair." The maid drew herself up to her full, albeit diminutive height. "I did not raise you to be a common woman. A common woman lazes in bed and lets a man leave when he is done with her, as if she has no worth, as if he is far more important than she is! I will get you some food and you will have a bath, but then you will dress nicely and have your usual visiting hours in the parlour, not just with Miss Serena, and not just with Mr Hornsby. Mister Chuck may come to you, if he wishes, but you will not waste all day lying there and smiling and waiting for him to do so!" She was quite out of breath by time the diatribe was over, and not a little red in the face. Blair propped herself up on one elbow, her features lovely but stern.

"Do you think he won't come, then?"

"He will come, Miss Blair," was the definite reply. "Or I will fetch him."

Déjà vu swirled as thickly in the air as snow as Blair was helped into the tub, the cricks in her back and thighs unknotting almost as soon they touched warm water. There were no tears, only this time it was because there was no requirement for grief, and fewer marks on her body. If anything, she had marked him, avoiding connection but scratching and nipping and smirking when he snarled. She'd wanted to hear pleas, at least once the awe and white light of reunion had died away and they were prepared to be unfair to one another again. He did plead with her. He did make her plead. The recollections of each were enough to make her laugh aloud and splash while Dorota worked over her tired limbs with a washcloth and twice rinsed her hair. The attar of roses rising from Grandmother Waldorf's dress was scrubbed off Blair's skin, to be replaced with her usual lavender and orange blossom and bespoke perfume scent. She smoothed cold cream over the worst of her few bruises, gasping even at her own tentative touch on flushed, swollen flesh that still bloomed pale apricot and purple.

Everything was different. Her hair was thicker, glossier, falling in heavy ringlets down her bare back before it was dressed neatly and piled above her brow so that stays could be layered over her chemise and the laces pulled tight, but never too tight by loving hands. Blair would always have them tighter than Dorota approved of, but today of all days she ought to be incomparable, sixteen inches in the waist and smaller when held between hands. She was glittering when she caught her own reflection in the mirror, not from her deep green day dress, not from the pearls dripping over her clavicle, not from her rosy bitten lips or the white flash of teeth behind them. She was simply glowing, full and satisfied, expectant and unafraid.

It would've been unsurprising to hear a symphony as she tripped downstairs.

The first caller of the day was one Mr Frederick Codrose. Blair stifled a giggle as she remember the ennui she had fought to disguise upon his last visit, when her mother was so convinced that this wet fish of a man was meant for her daughter. Mr Codrose still had that look of being more familiar with his hostess than he'd ever really been, as if they had shared a secret dalliance and now only communicated its existence with winks and bows and leers. She was too tempted to spike his coffee, but a suitably boring Codrose vomiting over the Turkey and silk rugs would be of no use to anyone. Besides, she knew well and good why she had the devil in her that morning, and it would have to be restrained until later.

"Mr Codrose."

"Miss Waldorf, you look utterly radiant."

She neither accepted nor negated the compliment, offering him the corner of a smile.

"In fact, you outdo the sparkling frost itself."

"I suppose the weather is now temperate enough for travel, if you yourself managed the journey unscathed." Blair wouldn't have minded if he'd broken a wheel or his neck, but if Eleanor had taught her anything, it was the importance of a good façade.

"Quite temperate, though I didn't quite come to you unscathed…"

Mr Codrose took an unsolicited seat and Blair, who longed to lounge in the Turkish corner with her eyes rising smokily over a book cover and wait with her magnificent sixteen inch waist to be swept away and ravished – naturally not by Mr Codrose – reluctantly took the seat opposite him. Tea was brought in, and the gentleman added four lumps of sugar and almost a quart of cream before he was content to take a sip. Blair took hers black, with lemon, and very nearly forgot herself enough to eat in front of him. As his card had been sent up before Dorota could get her a plate of anything, she was starving, but still she pushed the plate of sugared wafers across the coffee table towards her guest and bade him eat, which he did with gusto. He was growing a wispy moustache, which occasionally dipped in his tea, and Blair couldn't help wondering whether he'd have to wring it out before their interview was over.

"Some damage to your carriage? Such a shame."

"You keep a carriage, Miss Waldorf, I believe?"

"Yes, and a good stable. The lad Will tends all our animals very well, though I don't spend as much time with them as he does. It isn't proper, you understand."

You let Chuck Bass make love to you last night, her body prompted her, a weak pulse beginning below her navel at the very recollection. And that was certainly not proper.

"Naturally, it isn't right for you ladies to be exposed to all that sweating, heaving horseflesh."

I bet you'd sweat and heave like horseflesh if a woman ever so much as gave you a second glance.

Instead of voicing her uncharitable musings, Blair smiled sweetly. "More tea?"

Once the socially acceptable half hour was over, Mr Codrose took his leave with many a flourish of his gloves and his hat and more comparisons to sparkling frost than were heard even in poetry on the subject. His moustache dripped a little onto his bottom lip, and Blair shuddered at the image and subsided into the pile of cushions she had been craving with a sigh.

A cat suddenly entered the room, as if it had never been away, as if it had every right to be there again. Its owner arched a sceptical brow when it slunk onto her lap, purring fit to bust. 'Cat' was an arrogant, standoffish sort of creature who loved nobody but Blair, and that only infrequently. He would disappear for months on end, only to arrive on the Waldorfs' doorstep with no clue as to where he'd been. Currently, Blair didn't care, and pulled on his silky ears. It was her opinion that those who didn't keep a permanent residence in New York didn't deserve names, so the cat was called Cat, much to her father's amusement and mother's chagrin. He was a large, orange animal with great amber eyes, and he liked to stare at people. He mostly liked to stare at Blair, but that was because she petted him, and he approved of that.

"Miss Blair? Miss Blair!" Dorota hurried into the parlour, brandishing an envelope. Cat yowled at the intrusion and leapt off Blair's lap, making for unknown climes and a month long pilgrimage to a place where there were mice. Blair, for her part, merely frowned at her maid.

"It's just a letter, Dorota."

"It comes from the Waldorf-Astoria!"

"And?"

"From the suite of Mr Charles B. Bass, Esq., lately of California!"

Why would he write? Why was he not here to see her, to take her hand and mock or kiss or bless the fingers as he had so many times before? Blair grabbed for the envelope, searching for symbolism before she had even torn it open to reveal high quality notepaper that was ivory and almost bare, free of any writing but three lines in the dead centre.

It's just a game.
I hate to lose.
You're free to go.

"Miss Blair?"

Silence.

"Miss Blair?"

But she couldn't answer. She couldn't, she wouldn't ever again, because she couldn't understand, not even as all the clocks in the house begun to chime in an abrupt, tinkling, horrible din. She couldn't speak as she moved, as she began to run, as she banged open doors and wrenched at locks and flung herself back into the heart of it all, back into the place where petals fell soft and pretty and perfectly pink because everything fell, fell like she way falling, all the way down, again, again, again.

For the second time in its existence, tears wet the soil of the Waldorfs' greenhouse as frantic hands wrenched up every peony and threw each to the brazier's flames.

I always planned this ending (based upon the events of The Luxe and Rumours) in order to lay the foundations for a sequel (based upon the events of Envy and Splendour), so please don't get mad with me if the ending didn't fit your expectations. Get mad with Anna Godbersen, who broke my heart with this ending in The Luxe series.
Thanks to: aliceeeebeth, Laura, signaturescarf, D, MegamiTenchi, bookworm455, Trosev, BellaB2010, BeautifullyExcruciatingLove, Blood Red Kiss of Death, Krazy4Spike, Kate2008, abelard, louboutinlove, LeftWriter224, CBfanhere, ggoddess, Lyla, SaturnineSunshine, Arazadia, thegoodgossipgirl, Temp02, flipped and dreamgurl. Writing this fic and your support for it really helped me through my exams and leaving school, so thank you, and please stay tuned for the epilogue. Oh, and you may now throw projectiles at will.