Chapter Twenty: All the Heavens and All the Hells
Feels like we're dreaming, we're tripping and reeling
Just say that you belong to me (You belong to me)
I could get lost in the feelings we're feeling
Just say that you belong to me (You belong to me)
Do you want more of this? Isn't it glorious?
I can't believe that it's free (You belong to me)
I will adore you, I'll only live for you
Just say that you belong to me
— You Belong to Me by Cat Pierce
:::
Sin One: Steal the Briar Rose outside of the headmistress's office.
Sin Two: Go skinny dipping in Naiad's Pond.
Sin Three: Play a game of truth or dare on Romeo's balcony.
Sin Four: Carve your initials on the Assembly Hall door.
Sin Five: Summon the ghost of Henrietta Briar.
Sin Six: Throw a costume party at the old Willoughby Mansion.
Sin Seven: Hold a scavenger hunt. A person is the prize.
:::
October 1st, 2008: The Main Hall
"Impossible."
"Easy."
The seven of them stood before their first sin, the delicately carved flower stationed in front of Headmistress Blackwood's office, as the slew of students yawning and chatting their way to their first period classes bustled past them.
Even inside the Main Hall, the air was crisp. It was the first day of October, and autumn had finally given the dwindling heat the boot, making itself known through the sudden chill and deep color palettes adorning everybody's uniforms.
Blair adjusted the gold Kate Spade brooch pinned to her own burgundy cape.
"Neither," Blair corrected. "Stealing the rose will surely be a difficult feat, but it's been done before. Obviously."
She held the book in her hands out to her friends, and they formed a discreet huddle around her. It was the one she and Chuck had uncovered during their rendezvous in the music room, and it had recently become Blair's prized possession. Pouring over it late into the past few nights, she'd discovered that the old journal was a manifesto of sorts, penned by a group of friends that had not just graduated from Briar in 1969 but had spent their four years there ruling the institution.
Different versions of the same elaborate handwriting recounted their tales of mischief, romance, and extravagance in the very same halls they stood in. There were bourbon tea parties on the balconies, white-gloved affairs that dissolved into bacchanals, and hoaxes that were harmless enough to go unpunished but bold enough to establish the clique as a dominant entity of the student body.
The leader of their group seemed to have been a girl named Audrey Bettencourt—if this was not a sign from God Herself, Blair didn't know what was—and a descendent of New York royalty. She wrote of their affairs with both a dreaminess and hunger for importance. It wasn't popularity that she and her friends cared for. It was an unbreakable allegiance and an untouchable greatness.
In their senior year, they decided on seven wicked deeds they would complete before they graduated, leaving their mark on the school forever.
Ever the overachiever, Blair was determined to complete them before Thanksgiving break.
"I am not fucking getting into a catsuit!"
Blair glanced up, smirking as her best friends argued over the optics of their heist.
"Don't worry, Daalgard," she cooed, "no Lycra necessary. Plus…we know how much you prefer nylon."
Beside her, Chuck chortled, setting off a round of giggles from the rest of the group as they pictured Damien in last year's…ostentatious Romeo costume.
Damien made a face at her.
"We've gone over this. There are seven of us, and there are seven sins. We'll each commit one, with some help of the others, as an offering."
Eric's brow furrowed as he leaned into Ethan's tall form, almost pressing his cheek to the boy's navy blazer before remembering where they were. "An offering to who?"
Blair smiled. "Not to whom, Little E. To what. This about our legacy, our loyalty to each other, and stealing—borrowing—this rose is the first symbol of our…"
She trailed off as they all looked to the marble column upon which the rose had just sat.
A rose that was now gone.
"I think we should go now," Jenny stated, quietly appearing behind them, and glancing down at the part of her messenger bag that bulged with what was inside.
"Oh fuck," Damien muttered.
"Oh fuck," Ethan laughed.
Suddenly, Chuck was taking Blair's hand in his, pulling her behind him as they all raced down the hall, red bricks and beige columns blurring into a single-colored landscape as they laughed and nearly tripped over each other. They escaped through one of the grand set of doors that opened onto Paramore Fields, forgetting themselves and the school's new rules for a moment. Blair's heeled Mary Janes squeaked a bit as Chuck yanked her against him, and they all practically fell into a pile on the grass.
Blair was startled by a loud sound before she realized that it was her own laughter. Aside from her usual demure, snide giggling, she'd never heard anything like it coming from her own throat before. And now she was heaving with it, her chest burning and stomach cramping in pain like she was a madwoman. It mixed in the air with her friends' joviality like the wildest symphony.
For a moment, Blair felt like a young girl again, when emotion knew how to leap out of her without hesitation. There must have been a short time in her life before she put everything she felt behind barbed wire, waiting to scrape the skin of whoever wanted to be let in. This was proof.
She'd felt an inkling of it back when things were good between all of them, she was just starting to get a handle on her Briar throne, and a new dream was in reach. But since then, they were each so consumed in their own darkness they'd forgotten how to play in the light shared together.
Almost symbolically, the sun broke from behind its barrier of clouds and shone down on them despite the cold.
"Little J," Chuck coughed, and Blair turned her head, pressing her cheek into the grass to admire the boyish brightness on his face, the pink of his cheeks, "I rue the day I ever underestimated you."
This sent the group into another frenzy. Diana dug her face into Eric's stomach, and he yelped, then choked on another chuckle. Beside him, Ethan wiped a tear of hilarity from his cheek, but down streamed more. Damien accidentally knocked his head against Blair's ankle in his hysterics.
Only Jenny wasn't fully laughing, just sitting with a smile on her face and her thin hands poised over her bag.
"That's just J to you," she corrected Chuck, "I think I've just proven to all of you that I'm not little anymore."
Blair regarded her, frowning for a moment as they all went quiet.
God, she was tired of this, tired of Jenny and her skulking, tired of whatever rare moment of happiness they all got being wrecked by someone's inner angst.
"Point taken," Blair remarked, giving her friend the validation she seemed to so desperately crave, "J."
Jenny nodded slowly, then let her light, familiar laughter escape to join the rest of theirs.
"Where are all of you supposed to be?"
They froze and looked up to find one of the campus's many new security guards strolling up to them. His mustache hung over his top lip like a heavy curtain. It made Chuck snort quietly.
"We were just—" Eric began to mumble, intensely aware of the incriminating evidence sitting in plain sight beside him, until Diana pressed her finger into the side of his thigh.
"Waiting for our botany club to start," she interrupted in an obvious tone, plucking a blade of grass from the ground, and standing up to hold it in front of the guard. "Maybe you can settle our debate." Her smile was charming, her posture alluring. "Do you think this is a Ferragamo or a Brioni?"
Chuck and Blair leaned into each other to stifle another fit of laughter as Diana listed the Italian designer names guised as plant species. They almost pitied the poor, clueless guard as he stared at the grass, then at Diana biting her lip, completely stupefied.
"I, uh, well I can't say," the guard tried, scratching his head. "Probably the first one."
Diana smiled at him, then waved the grass at her friends. "Told ya." She turned back at him. "You're brilliant, thanks. Do you mind if we resume?"
"Er, sure, yes," the guard approved, only narrowing his eyes at them once more before continuing his patrol around the grounds.
When he was at a safe distance, they burst into laughter again, and Diana presented the grass to Blair like an offering.
Blair took it and pretended to wipe a tear from her eye. "From protégé to mastermind…I've never been prouder."
Eric dropped his face into his hands to hide a smile.
Chuck leaned back to rest his head on Blair's lap and reached into his pocket for a cigarette, smirking with amusement and some tiny slant of affection.
He said, "I just came to the realization that all of you are actually tolerable."
Ethan laid back as well, parallel to his friend, and the rest of them joined him.
The sky got that much brighter.
"We love you too, Chuck."
:::
October 10th, 2008: Guidance Office, Main Hall
"Let's talk about Tuscany."
Chuck cracked his knuckles, longing to be literally anywhere else. Peter Lewis's office incessantly smelled of salad and cheap cologne, the guidance counselor's signature scent. When he started at Briar, Chuck was always annoyed by Mrs. Reginald's persistent concern for his grades and health, but now he found himself missing the woman's calm and warm demeanor, the hours she'd spent patiently listening to him sort out his angst about life, school, and Blair.
Chuck wasn't stupid. He knew that Mr. Lewis was just a totem of his father's wrathful control after the events of Tuscany. Something felt off about Bart's now-regular conversations with the counselor, how he was suddenly so tapped-in to Chuck's life, how they both seemed to care very much about his medication intake without elaborating on what he was taking or what it was doing to him.
But this was his weakness—the numbness, the escape. He detested feeling helpless, but helpless to it he was. Chuck Bass was an addict to many things, and he would always prefer the substance to its motive.
"What is there still to talk about?"
"Well," Mr. Lewis replied, "it's the reason you're here. You got yourself into a lot of trouble there, didn't you?"
Chuck winced as the visions flocked back to him.
He'd been standing in the mirror, trying to understand what happened to him, tracing the marks on his skin to the shadows under his eyes like constellations. Blair was furiously packing her things in the reflection behind him, a whirlwind of lace and silk and disbelief.
"How did it feel when Blair left you there?" Mr. Lewis's voice cut into the memory, like he was narrating it.
"Blair, please."
She'd ignored him, checked her flight information for the fifteenth time.
"Blair, a month ago you told me that you loved me. Now you—"
"I did," Blair had replied curtly. "And look at where that got me."
Chuck pursed his lips, returned to the room. Peter Lewis, waiting for an answer. The smell of stale greens and Light Blue.
"Things are fine between me and Blair now. We've resolved that…issue."
"That wasn't my question." Mr. Lewis gave him a practiced catalogue grin. "Have you resolved that issue?"
Chuck rolled his eyes. "Aren't you being paid to do that for me?"
"In some ways," Mr. Lewis remarked, "but the first step to any recovery is admittance. When we can admit that we've caused a problem, we can begin to find its solution."
"How philosophic," Chuck sneered.
"Admittance," Mr. Lewis repeated, unmoved.
Chuck cracked his knuckles, thrummed his fingers on the edge of the man's desk. A man who was asking him to confess to something he couldn't remember.
"Of course, we could always halt these sessions, if you don't feel like cooperating," Mr. Lewis breezed, "which I'd have to explain to your father. And the pills we have you on, you can see if whatever dealer you were using before will provide you with them. Difficult, but not impossible."
"That's your professional opinion?"
"It's a realistic one. I just wonder if you'll be able to balance a social life, girlfriend, and teetering GPA amid withdrawals. Doesn't sound very fun." Mr. Lewis lowered his glasses to the bridge of his nose, and even at the mention of it, Chuck felt that controlled itch strike him.
They stared at each other for a moment.
Then, distantly, the memory of Tuscany flooded the room with an unbearable light.
"I knew you would do something like this," Blair had snapped, "you can't help yourself."
"You can't help who you are," Bart had said in the days after his return, backing her point.
"It's just who I am," Chuck lied. Was he? Lying? "I wrecked things in Tuscany because I couldn't handle it. I couldn't help myself."
"Good," Mr. Lewis remarked, sitting back in his chair and reaching for a pad of paper to jot down a note. "Good. That's a start."
Downstairs, Blair was spreading rouge on her lips, the daring color still neatly within the lines of her smile, and Mrs. Reginald was waiting patiently to begin their session.
"What would you like to talk about today, Blair?"
Blair paused, the color continuing towards her cheek before she caught it in time.
"Blair?"
"You haven't asked me that before."
"Well, then I should more often," Mrs. Reginald smiled warmly. "This is your time. And I want you to use it the way you'd like. You've told me that so much of your life restricts you in a way that causes you pain. Let me be one less source."
"Okay," Blair replied. A silent minute passed as they sat there, Blair straightening the hem of her uniform skirt, touching the buttons of her beige blouse, adjusting the black band barely visible in her curls, which were dark for the season. "Everyone has moved on."
"From last year?"
"From everything," Blair said. "I thought that everyone else was hung up on what's happened, that they were holding me back from being who I am. But it's…me. The more I move forward, the more I find myself back where I started."
"If you had to take a guess, why do you think that is?"
Blair thought of herself behind the closed restroom doors, forever kneeling at that porcelain altar of which the sacrifice was her lunch. She thought of herself in the dining hall, watching her friends shift and change as she gripped a book from the past, desperate to recreate it. She thought of Tuscany, that little voice begging her to hear Chuck out before she stormed out of the resort and boarded a plane back to what she knew, even if it was equally as disappointing.
At least it was a familiar disappointment.
"When I was eleven," Blair began, stomach turning a bit, "my parents promised they would take me to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time to see La Bohème. They were still together then, and we were happy. There were brunches and dinner parties and…we were happy. But I was beginning to notice things between them that weren't there before. Perhaps it was prophetic, or I had gained some sort of cruel consciousness of reality. Regardless, going to the opera, it meant something to me. I'd come home and cross the days off in my school agenda book, waiting for the evening to come. They bought me a special bow to wear in my hair that night. It was gold and red, and my father told me I'd look like a present with it on. He always says I remind him of Christmas morning." Blair smiled wistfully. "I fell asleep looking at it on my nightstand each night, and my dreams were all in song. I was so excited."
"And was it what you'd dreamed of?"
"I don't know." Blair blinked. "My mother started an argument with my father the evening we were supposed to go. I didn't know what it was about then, but I suppose now I can fill in the blanks. The hour came and went. Dorota made me go to bed. They both forgot."
"That must have felt very confusing."
"That's the thing," Blair whispered, rubbing the red between her lips, "I actually understood it all very clearly. The things that are important to me…can simply not matter to other people. All my life, I've lived in the way things are supposed to be, and I have nothing to show for it." She thought of herself laughing on the fields with her friends, how sadly strange her joy had sounded. "I…I held onto that bow for years." It was buried in her dresser drawer as they spoke. "Even after my father left, even though my mother never mentioned it again, I still had some strange hope that one evening they'd be waiting there, all dressed up, and surprise me with tickets."
"Even though the thought of that might hurt more than accepting they won't."
Blair looked at the floor. "Yes."
"Thank you very much for your openness, Blair. I know that must be very difficult for you to share, and I don't undervalue that."
"You're…welcome."
Mrs. Reginald smiled again. "If I suggest something, will you sit with it for a moment before dismissing it?"
Blair narrowed her eyes.
"I would like to call your mother, right now, and be with you while you speak to her."
Blair let out an incredulous breath. "Right. This has gone from sentimental to completely insane."
"Blair, from what you've described, your most difficult moments have occurred behind closed doors. Wouldn't you like the opportunity to speak to Eleanor with a third-party present, someone holding her accountable to what she's saying to you?"
"Um, not really."
Mrs. Reginald persisted, "Someone in the room, reminding her of the opera tickets, of the eleven-year-old girl waiting in her room?"
Blair inhaled sharply.
A pause.
"Fine."
It took three tries to reach Eleanor. When she finally picked up and heard that it was Blair and her guidance counselor on the other end of the line, she began some excuse about a meeting with her financial advisor beginning in five minutes, how she didn't have the time to just drop everything and—
"This is extremely important to Blair and her progress," Mrs. Reginald said firmly, then shot Blair a calming wink. "I'm afraid that if we don't have this talk, you'll be holding her back from all the hard work she's done to get to this point. And none of us want that, do we?"
For a long moment, Blair wondered if her mother had hung up.
"Okay," Eleanor sighed, "what is it?"
"I…" Blair trailed off, glanced at Mrs. Reginald. "I wanted to tell you that despite how hard things have been in the last year, I think I'm finally getting a handle on it all again. Finally…understanding what I need to do."
The sound of papers shuffling, then, "That's good, Blair."
"I got As on all of my midterms, my friends and I have taken on an extracurricular project," that was one way to put it, "I also did some research and discovered that Yale's dean is attending a Shakespeare festival with his daughter not too far from here just before the Thanksgiving break, so I'm planning to go and reintroduce myself."
"Didn't your interview go well during college visits?"
Blair caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Okay, perhaps not everything needed to be truthful to be genuine. "A good second impression never hurts, Mother. You know that I can be an overachiever."
Blair and Mrs. Reginald both startled at the laughter that funneled through the phone's speaker.
"Yes, well," Eleanor replied, "you do get that from me."
Blair's smile was small but glowing. "I do. I know that the last time we spoke, you were hesitant about my being here because of the incidents of last year and Chuck, but...that's all behind us now. All of us." Blair paused. "I also know that you want me to return to Manhattan in the spring, but something I've learned from you is to persevere…even if the situation isn't optimal." She was staring at Mrs. Reginald when she continued, "perhaps we should talk about it more during the break. If you're not traveling, we could have dinner at Le Bernardin, maybe see something at the opera."
"The opera," Eleanor echoed, her voice cracking. Blair wasn't sure if it was the horrid upstate reception. She hoped it wasn't. "Yes, that would be quite nice. I wonder if it isn't too late to book tickets for La Bohème."
Blair felt something rise in her, stunned that it wasn't panic.
It was something good.
"I don't think it's too late."
:::
October 11th, 2008: Dexter Hall Dormitories
Blair felt as rejuvenated by her recent counseling session as she would after a fresh blowout. She sat on the sill of her dorm's wide window with a heavy book in her hands and watched the trees wear their golden hues like fresh highlights, feeling utterly at peace.
That is, until an exasperated sigh cut sharply into the center of it.
It was a rare moment when she, Jenny, and Diana were all in their room. When they weren't together in their entire group, the blonde was always brooding in a dark corner on campus and the brunette was dashing off to do…well, whatever the hell she was doing, sneaking back to the dorm late at night and quietly climbing back into bed as if Blair didn't notice.
Blair narrowed her eyes at them now, each with their own angsty expressions on their faces as they lay on their respective platform beds.
"Enough of this," Blair hissed, getting up from the sill to sit on her own bed. "We're convening. Right now."
Diana hesitantly pried her eyes from her cell phone. "B, I'm waiting for a text."
Jenny didn't even glance up from the sketchbook in her hands. "And I'm super busy."
Blair let out an annoyed breath and stomped up the stairs spiraling at the center of their corridor. Jenny practically yelped when she yanked the pages from her hand.
Blank pages.
"Looks like it," Blair smirked. She snapped the book shut and threw it across the comforter, then descended the stairs to Diana's bed to confiscate her cell phone. "The three of us. Now. Not optional."
Once they were all assembled on Blair's royal purple queen duvet—an homage to a certain lavender-adoring suitor, no doubt—she set a Miu Miu clutch down on the center of it.
"A gift?" Diana inquired, reaching for it.
Blair snatched it away. "Not quite. Since the school year started, we've barely spent time together like this. Both of you are being absurdly suspicious, and I've had enough of it. We didn't go through everything we went through to just—" Blair's voice broke a bit, and she took a moment to regain her composure. "I thought I was leaving friends who kept things from me behind when I came to Briar, not gaining them. So please, if we're no longer the trio I thought we were, that we all swore we were when you sat on this bed feasting on my gold collection a year ago, tell me now," she pursed her lips, "and I'll allot my time to worthier pursuits."
Jenny stared at her hands. She and Diana exchanged a guilty glance.
"I am invested, Blair," Jenny whispered, "I really am."
Diana reached across the duvet to put her hand over Blair's stony fist. "Of course we are."
"Fine." Blair swallowed, ignoring the relief that washed over her. "Well, since you're both acting like preschoolers, I'll treat you as such. Whoever's holding the Miu Miu gets to speak. So, Diana," she handed the clutch over to her, "care to share why you've been sneaking in at all hours of the night with the class?"
Diana toyed with one of her black waves, winced as if she'd just taken a shot of whiskey, and then blurted, "I'm seeing someone."
Blair rolled her eyes. "We both know about your faux tryst with Ethan. Don't tell me you're that committed to the façade."
"It's not Ethan," Diana murmured, "it's the…it's our new guidance counselor. Peter Lewis."
Jenny's gasp was so sharp she choked on it.
Blair looked like she'd just taken a bite out of something rotten.
"You're having an affair with a guidance counselor. The one with that sorry excuse for an accent? Who wears those ill-fitting suits?"
Diana covered her face with her hands. "And you wonder why I didn't tell you."
Blair sighed, not wanting to push her friend away when they were finally making some progress. She'd since apologized for everything that happened during their trip to Yale, but with how horribly she'd acted, she knew Diana had every right not to fully trust her. Besides, the whole throwing stones from glass houses thing was in poor taste.
"What? I'm not passing judgement. I'm simply making observations."
Diana made a noise into her palm.
Jenny reached to pat her on the back. "What B means to say is…after what happened last year, we don't want to see you with someone who's taking advantage of you."
"Right," Blair agreed, "exactly what I said."
Jenny rolled her eyes.
"I get that," Diana said, finally looking at them, "but you have to trust me when I say that he isn't. What we have is exciting and…sophisticated. If anything, it makes me feel empowered."
Blair's nose wrinkled. "Empowered."
Diana nodded. "There's something about bending an elusive man to his desire for you that's really…hot. If anything, I learned that from B and Chuck."
Jenny made a face. "I really don't think that's the same thing."
"Seriously," Blair said, "you're being offensive. Couldn't you have chosen literally anyone else for this little power play? We always thought Professor Cyril was a silver fox—"
"Okay," Diana interrupted, shoving the clutch at Jenny, "it's been my turn long enough."
"That conversation is far from done," Blair admonished, but finally relented. "But yes, J, it is your turn."
Jenny traced the bag's stitching with one jet black-polished fingernail. "I'm not really sure what to say."
"Let's start with your little secret."
Jenny froze, wondering if the pills in her bag had spilled or—
"You and Damien had sex," Blair accused, though her tone was still light, careful. "And now you regret it, don't you?"
Jenny exhaled. Okay, maybe that was one of her secrets, even if it wasn't what was causing her emotional distance from the two girls. But what was she supposed to tell them? That she was high right now? That the fall breeze coming in from the window was prickling at her senses, making her itchy and restless? That didn't really make for good girl talk.
"How do you know that?"
"I don't," Blair replied, "I took a guess, which you just confirmed. I saw him sneak into our room when Diana and I left for prom that night. You avoided him the entire summer, and now every time he so much as looks in your direction I can practically see the sad flashback montage projected in those doe eyes."
She looked at Diana for back-up, but their friend seemed uncomfortable by the turn in conversation. There were more than a few elephants crowding the room as they spoke, but the largest was the knowledge that Damien and Diana had lost their virginities to each other once upon a time.
Ugh, this was all getting a little too incestuous for Blair's taste.
"I'm not sure if I regret it," Jenny mumbled. "It was nice…it was. He was…wonderful. But it all got to be too much. And now that I'm on academic probation, I don't even have time to think about—"
Blair frowned. "You're on academic probation? You?"
"Seriously, J," Diana finally remarked, "don't you polish red apples for teachers in your spare time?"
Jenny curled her fist. "It's not a joke."
Diana shook her head and took the girl's hand. "I'm not making it one. I'm just…surprised. And worried."
"Yeah," Jenny admitted, fighting the tears welling up in her eyes, "me too."
After a moment of silence, save for the sound of some students crunching the first fallen brown leaves outside, Blair lifted her chin and took the purse in one hand, held Diana and Jenny's hands with the other.
"Well, you shouldn't be," Blair said, "because we're going to help you."
"You are?"
"Of course."
"You don't think I'm some sort of embarrassment…that I'm inferior now? Dishonoring everything you stand for?"
Blair frowned. "Jenny, in an old life, I might have seen you as a minion following me around and doing my bidding, but that's not what we are to each other. You're my best friend. Both of you are." She thought of her conversation with Mrs. Reginald. "And what's important to you is important to me. Even if that's a subjectively tacky guidance counselor or less than favorable academic status."
Jenny stared at the ceiling as a tear slipped down her cheek.
"And look," Blair continued, "you know I'm not particularly a fan of Damien cast as any kind of love interest..."
Diana laughed, "B, you're not a fan of anyone."
Blair smiled, "That's the smartest observation you've made all day." She turned her attention back to Jenny. "But I do see how pathetically in love with you he is. So perhaps it'll make you feel better to face what happened and stop running from it."
As Blair gave the advice, she realized that she was also partly speaking to herself.
"You might be right," Jenny sniffed.
"I'm completely right," Blair corrected. "Always am. Always will be."
"So, B," Diana interjected, "you're holding the bag. Looks like it's your turn."
Blair gave a dramatic sigh, totally for show, and checked the time on her alarm clock.
"Looks like that will have to wait," Blair announced, standing from the bed and tossing a lipstick and her cell phone into the clutch. She was partially eager to get started on her renaissance, but mostly afraid to open her own Pandora's Box.
She had never fully broached the topic of her eating problems with her friends, nor too many of the details of her old fallout with Chuck, the darkness she couldn't quite shake off from the kidnapping. And she wasn't planning to start now. Not when she was feeling so much clarity, so much certainty that everything was going to be okay.
It had to be okay.
She was going to drag Jenny back into proper social standing, put a halt to Diana's sordid little affair, get back in Dean Berube's good graces, and pull off the most glorious legacy ever created in the halls of Briar. All in time to make her mother see how well she was doing during Thanksgiving break. And Chuck?
Her own words floated their way back to her. Perhaps it'll make you feel better to face what happened and stop running from it.
Blair smiled at her friends. "There are plans to arrange."
Diana tossed a stray hair clip at her. "How convenient."
"Need I remind you that we wouldn't have even had this little bonding session had I not wrangled you both from your miserable towers? We'll continue this later. Right now, I have other fish to fry. Namely, a Bass."
Jenny smiled a real smile, one she'd forgotten she had. "Only you could make romance sound sinister."
Blair swooned. "Isn't it?"
:::
October 13th, 2008: Wentworth Hall Dormitories
Chuck was half-complaining, half-smiling as Blair led him blindfolded through his dormitory halls after midnight. She'd found him "studying" with Damien in the library, their old haunt, though she was sure that the two were just playing a drinking game over the pages of Chaucer.
Now, he toyed impatiently with her fingers, her Celine scarf resting on his eyes.
"If you were interested in exploring BDSM, Waldorf, all you had to do was ask."
"Shut up," she replied sweetly.
Finally, they stopped before what he imagined was his door, and Blair reached into his blazer pocket for his key. He heard the clicking open of a lock, and then she slipped the silk from his face, making a grand reveal like a gorgeously wicked magician.
"What is this?"
Chuck marveled at the ambiance she had conjured in his cavern of a room. Candles were lit atop a few book piles and his dresser. A plush blanket was pristinely laid out on the center of the floor, covered in his favorite fruits and snacks, eclairs spilling over with chocolate like delicious little volcanoes. His laptop was open by a pile of carefully arranged pillows, paused at the beginning of one of his favorite Bond movies.
"I thought we could…" Blair began, suddenly feeling unbearably shy. Banter and insults were easy. Even before they were together, before Blair came to Briar, they spoke a language all their own, a chessboard effortlessly manifested by the bits of their identities that bled into each other's. He made his move; she made hers. He played; she played back. But this didn't feel like that. "Well, you always…"
Chuck watched her quietly as a blush spread over her cheeks. He reached out to brush his fingers over the left side of Blair's face, cold on her hot skin.
"Last year, you told me you loved me," Blair stated, deciding to wing it from there.
"I recall." The corner of his lips lifted, but his eyes still seemed guarded. Sad.
"More than that, you've shown me," Blair said under a breath. She fiddled with the Cartier bracelet cuffing her slim wrist, and they both watched it reflect bits of the candlelight. "I didn't believe you would. But you have, again and again."
"I've tried." Chuck carefully touched her fingers to still their trembling. "I know that sometimes I can be…"
"Obnoxious? Lurid? Agonizingly stubborn?"
"Disappointing."
Blair sucked in a breath and tasted guilt. "I'm not disappointed in you, Chuck."
"How could you not be? In Tuscany, I proved myself to be exactly what you expected. What everyone expected. Even me." Chuck released her hand to cup his own jaw, angling away from her now. It was sick, how vulnerable she made him feel. A part of him longed to go back to his old ways, make some inappropriate remark, push her aside before she got to the goriest bits of him. But another part, a newly found one, felt a bit relieved as they put the events of the summer out in the open, as he…opened up. "I fear that what you see in me isn't what I am. Just an exception of it."
He felt Blair's hands on his face, always so gentle for a girl who could also unleash hellfire with one simple touch. She made him look at her.
"What I see in you is someone I love," Blair said. She looked so pretty in this light, curls pinned up at the nape of her neck and errantly framing her face. The collar of her shirt laced wildly around the smooth lines of her collar. "I was angry and afraid when you came back in the state you were in. But I should have stayed in Tuscany. I should have believed you. I should have helped you, not…abandoned you the way that I did."
Chuck pursed his lips, fighting the emotion that was threatening to spill onto his face.
"I abandoned you once," he said.
"That's true. We both did things to hurt the other, but I think we were doing them more to hurt ourselves."
The words sunk into him, and he sat with a profound understanding.
"I'm sorry." Chuck wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say now, but it was a true thing. And for him, that was a start.
"I'm sorry, too," Blair whispered, throwing her arms around his neck and digging her face into his shoulder. He placed a hand on the back of her head, shut his eyes, and smiled for a moment, feeling something he'd never confidently felt before: the possibility of it all.
He'd always thought that belonged to boys like Nate, the gleaming thing on the horizon, security and the belief in it. Despite himself, he pictured the calmness of this moment repeating itself a million times in his future. Blair wiping a crumb from his cheek at an elaborate dinner table, then kindly scolding him about the mess. Blair fixing his tie before an event they'd spend lapping the room and taking turns at snide commentary in each other's ears. Blair holding his hand, dressed in white, reciting vows penned as a medley of all her favorite old romantic films.
What the hell had become of him?
So lost in thought, Chuck missed whatever she'd just mumbled into the fabric of his shirt.
"Hm?"
"I asked if we really just had a mature exchange about our feelings that didn't end in bloodshed."
Chuck smirked. "The night is still young." He chuckled as Blair slapped him lightly on the chest. "Speaking of, are you going to explain all this?"
Shaking off the emotional gleam in her eyes, Blair seemed reinvigorated by his question. "I'm taking you on the perfect date."
"A date?"
She nodded.
"In my room?"
Blair sniffed, extricating herself from him to pull them both onto the floor. "Oh, now you lack imagination? Excuse me if I'm limited at the moment, Bass."
Chuck laughed openly, choosing a piece of biscotti from the arrangement and taking it between his teeth. "Fair point. So, tell me, Waldorf, where are we really?"
"In Paris, obviously."
"Mm, so this is your perfect date."
"Don't you love Paris?"
"I love how much you love Paris," Chuck replied, raising an affectionate brow, "and how hot it gets you to pretend we're fucking in the French royal court at Versailles."
Blair blushed again, nibbling on a strawberry and wrapping herself in one of his blankets. He savored the sight.
"Bass, please," she complained, "this is supposed to be romantic."
"Actually, you said this was supposed to be perfect," Chuck corrected, tugging at the blanket to reveal the sliver of skin between her skirt and white lace knee-highs. "And my idea of perfection involves you humming a very naughty array of French words in my ear."
"Restrain yourself," Blair scolded, "or I'll restrain you."
Chuck smiled as she pressed play on Goldfinger. There were those wretched butterflies again.
Two hours later, he was watching Blair bite her lip as a dashing Sean Connery pulled his love interest to the ground before she could signal a rescue helicopter in the sky.
"Oh, no you don't," Bond said, suavely scooping the blonde woman into his arms, "This is no time to be rescued."
The two kissed passionately, and the first notes of the title song began to croon through his laptop speakers.
"Ugh, now I see where you get all of your smarmy material," she accused, rubbing her eyes.
Chuck stretched a bit, not wanting to distance himself from Blair even though he was sure the area of his arm she rested on was going paralyzed.
Being a boyfriend was just as dangerous as being an international spy, it seemed.
"The very smarmy material that has you curled in my arms like a Bond girl right now," he replied, self-satisfied.
"Ugh, how dare you?" Blair scoffed. "He's got a new one in every movie. They're completely replaceable. And that, I am not." She paused, blinked up at him. "Am I?"
What a question. If only she knew how cursed Chuck felt with the knowledge that no girl could ever follow Blair. The enormity of what he felt for her, as discomforting as it was, couldn't be matched. And he found any attempt at a lesser comparison fruitless. He held her chin in his fingertips, soothing her. "No, you're not."
The credits rolled, making the dark room glow.
They'd spent the length of the movie bickering and chatting between scenes. Chuck hadn't realized how much more there was to learn about Blair. And how embarrassingly eager he was to learn it.
Blair told him about how insipid her French teacher was and the satisfaction she found in correcting his conjugations. She described the gold Dior dress she'd had her eye on in the winter collection—in a little too much detail for Chuck's attention span—prompted by a debate about the film's title. They exchanged notes on the progress of their Seven Heavenly Sins; the deeds completed and what was to come. He listened to her verbally blueprint the way she planned to get revenge on that weasel William Kincaid and get herself back into Yale's good graces. Together, they made fun of Ethan's new haircut, and she ranted about Jenny and Diana's evasiveness, how they'd made amends, but it still infuriated her to know that they'd been keeping secrets.
(Chuck knew that by infuriated, she meant hurt.)
Here and there, he mentioned a tune he was picking up on the piano, the new pocket square that would match that gold dress perfectly, his own (and apparently unwelcome) opinions on Jenny and Diana's boring melodramas.
"Academic probation? Is that meant to be a bad thing?"
She'd rolled her eyes. "For Jenny, it is. She's on…scholarship."
But for the most part, he quietly listened, half-watching the movie, but mostly enjoying how excited she was to share things with him.
There were moments when Blair seemed to want to say more, like there was a ghost haunting the tip of her tongue. After they'd stuffed themselves with desserts, she appeared stressed, and a nagging part of himself knew why. But Chuck couldn't go there.
Just like he couldn't go to the place that ached to pop a pill and escape into a haze for the rest of the night. No matter how open they had suddenly decided to be, neither was prepared for what waited behind some doors.
Bloodshed.
"So," Chuck murmured, rolling to lean over her. His fingers curled at her thigh, their bodies tangled together in the blanket. "Is that the extent of our evening? I'd ask you to walk me home, but…" He waved a hand at his own space with a weak flourish.
Blair frowned. "Do you want it to be the extent of our evening?"
"Christ, Waldorf," Chuck sighed, tracing the bridge of her nose, "will you let me finish for once?"
Blair paused, then smirked at him. "Don't I always?"
He leered at her. "The influence I've had on you is remarkable."
"You're giving yourself too much credit."
"You don't give yourself enough."
They stared at each other with more playfulness and ease than either knew what to do with.
She ran one finger down the nape of his neck, and Chuck bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from shivering.
"I did," Blair whispered, raising to speak against his lips, "have one more item on the agenda."
A lustful sound escaped him, but when he dipped to kiss her, she lifted, shooting him a mischievous smile. He rose on his elbows to watch her kneel before him and undo a single button of her shirt. When his hand twitched to touch her, she placed hers over it.
"Don't," Blair warned. "I told you to…restrain yourself." Her touch moved to his knee, up his thigh, then higher. They both gasped when she found him already hard for her, had been since she fed him a piece of croissant a half hour ago and let her fingertip linger on his tongue. They watched each other as she palmed him through his pants, his breaths coming faster and heavier each time.
"Très impatient, n'est-ce pas?" Blair asked, toying with the zipper of his dress pants before pulling it down. He swallowed when she admired the satin of his boxers as he so often did her stockings, slipping her hand through the slit to stroke him.
"Blair, don't make me beg," Chuck hissed, unable to pry his eyes from the sight.
"En français s'il vous plait," Blair requested. She smiled gently and inched closer.
He made a face at her, groaned, "Oui."
"Tu es à moi," Blair stated, but it sounded more like a question. She freed him from the trappings of his boxers, leaned to press a kiss to the side of his neck, appearing almost mythically lit by the dying candles.
"I'm yours," he replied, then winced when she halted her movements. He corrected himself, "Je suis à vous."
He silently thanked whichever god was listening for French nannies.
Satisfied, Blair picked up her pace, gripping him a bit tighter, kissing him everywhere but his lips. Pleasure coursed through him, hot and electric. Her hand was so warm and soft, but her eagerness to unravel him rough and persistent. She spoke in English now, "Just feel. Let me take you there."
He groaned with such pleasure that it sounded pained, realizing she was repeating his own words back to him, the ones he'd whispered in her ear one year ago when he'd touched her on Paramore Fields for the first time. Really touched her.
Her other hand rose, fingers curling in his hair, which was slightly long at the neck as he liked to keep it when it got cold. She pulled, and he let out a loud, broken noise that he was sure would wake the entirety of Wentworth Hall.
As if he gave a shit.
"You don't know how handsome you look like this, Bass," Blair urged, licking a line up the side of his neck.
He distantly wondered what that pathetic whimpering sound was.
"Mm, je te veux," Blair murmured, nipping at his chin.
Oh, it was coming from him.
"How does that feel?"
Another stifled groan. "I—"
"Tell me, Chuck."
"I—" he cut off amid a particularly hard stroke and pressed his forehead to her shoulder, weak and overwhelmed, "Fuck, I love you."
Blair moaned against his cheek, smiling, and her voice went dark. "Then show me."
His hips rose of their own accord, an unintelligible slew of words tangled with her name shouted into the night air as he spilled over her hand.
She finally kissed him, kissed him so lightly, as if he were a gentle thing and not what he truly was, kissed him and kissed him until he was gasping and their lips were simply pressed together, sharing one breath.
Blair's fingers uncurled from Chuck's hair, and his vision focused in time to see her raising the hand that had been pleasuring him to her mouth so that she could lick the evidence of what she'd done.
She smiled.
Chuck cursed in disbelief, nearly knocking his head back against the cushioned floor.
A perfect date, indeed.
:::
October 13th, 2008: Bass Industries
If Eleanor Waldorf could see all the way upstate, through the halls of Briar, and to her daughter's current activities inside a boys' dormitory, she might have reconsidered the epiphany she was having.
But she couldn't.
So, she was still pondering the phone conversation she'd had with Blair and that guidance counselor when she strolled through the doors of Bass Industries.
Eleanor could admit that she'd never been the best, or even most willing, mother. She couldn't help seeing Blair as she saw most things in order to manage them: a result. A result of her own rigid upbringing, a result of her shattered marriage, a result of what Eleanor didn't see in herself.
But when she'd heard Blair on the phone, something had softened in her.
No, it had always been soft. And Blair had reminded her of it.
Which was why she stood across Bart Bass's desk and announced, "The plan is done, Bart. I may have been too harsh in my reaction to Blair and her relationship with Chuck. I spoke with her recently, and she seems to be happy at Briar, thriving."
"Too harsh," Bart echoed, glancing up at her from behind the papers he'd been perusing. "I'm not familiar with the concept. But…very well. We must all parent in the ways we choose."
Eleanor pursed her lips. "If I might make a suggestion…Blair and Chuck have both been through quite a few traumatic ordeals in the past year. Perhaps it's time you lend him an ear, as I did to Blair. Before you lose him."
"I'm sure you can agree that you can't lose what you never had," Bart said. His even glare was a villainous caricature, sending a cold rush up her spine.
"You'll kill him. If you keep breaking him this way, medicating him," Eleanor swallowed, pressing her fingers into the documents atop Bart's desk until that skin went red. "You'll kill him." Some concerned, maternal part of herself thought, and that will kill Blair.
"Everything Charles is doing is of his own accord," Bart said evenly, "and so will be the outcome."
Eleanor stared, blinked her eyes like some fairytale character coming out of a spell cast by an evil king. She had wanted to push Blair in what she thought had been the right direction, sure. But she had never intended to irreversibly harm her child or someone else's.
She understood now that she'd been no less of a pawn in Bart's plan than Chuck was. He'd been using her to destroy his son, and he would destroy Blair in the process. He would destroy anything that Chuck loved.
But no one used Eleanor Waldorf. She'd had enough of that to last a lifetime.
"Is that all, Eleanor?"
Eleanor rolled her shoulders back, stared down at the man with a fire to match his frigidity.
"For now," she warned.
Bart waited until the woman left his office to pick up his phone and dial an upstate area code.
Peter Lewis picked up on the first ring, as he was employed to.
"I imagine that since you're still collecting my checks, our plan is going swimmingly."
In his office, Peter removed his glasses and tossed them aside. "Bart, Chuck is exactly where we want him, stewing in his guilt, pliant and submitting."
"And his little relationship with Blair Waldorf?"
"Going strong, unfortunately. But I'm working on it."
"Well, work on it faster."
If Bart Bass could see all the way upstate, through the halls of Briar, and to where Diana St. Jean was eavesdropping outside of the guidance counselor's office, he might not have finished his sentence.
But he couldn't, so he continued his tirade. Diana listened in horror, her stomach turning as the men discussed their plan to break Chuck Bass. Peter listed the names of drugs Diana had never even heard of before, mentioning the idea of a staggered overdose and forms of psychological punishment as casually as one would make brunch plans. She nearly gasped when he said Diana's name, explained that he was using her as some sort of informant to keep tabs on Chuck's ongoings.
When the conversation went silent, Diana slipped back into the dark maze of hallways, bursting back into their dorm room, out of breath and wanting to throw up.
How could this have happened to her again? How could something in her be attracted to so much deceit?
"Diana?"
Jenny was sitting up in bed, peering over the side of it to look at her.
"Sorry I woke you up," Diana murmured, grateful that Blair's bed was still made and empty.
"That's okay," Jenny replied, "I was barely asleep anyway. Wanna come up here?"
Diana took a breath as she climbed the stairs and sat at the edge of Jenny's bed. Since their talk, the blonde looked a little brighter, less shaken. Blair had been right. About so many things. Most humiliatingly, she had been right about Peter Lewis. Diana had been a fool.
But she couldn't admit that now, it was too embarrassing.
Besides, the information she held in her hands was fragile, a bomb that could so easily cause the wrong casualties. And Diana couldn't just dump it off on Jenny and expect her to cut the right wire, save the day as she'd done last year, not when she was barely able to save herself.
Over and over again, Diana had laid her fate in the hands of men who didn't deserve it. Over and over again, she'd been tricked and left with nothing.
This time, she was going to do something about it. She was no damsel, and she was done with all this fucking distress. Especially when her friends' lives were on the line.
"Diana?"
She hadn't realized Jenny was still staring at her.
"Sorry," Diana said, forcing a smile, "it's nothing. I was just thinking about Halloween."
"…Halloween?"
"Costumes. B was complaining about how we can't go shopping for them this year, and what better way to get my favorite designer back into her groove than have her make them for us?"
Jenny smiled a bit, then gave her sketchbook a sheepish glance. "I don't have any ideas."
Diana took the sketchbook and thrust it at her friend, something blazing beneath her skin. "Leave that up to me."
:::
October 20th, 2008: The Briar Theatre
"I hate this."
"Quit being such a child, Dalgaard," Blair hissed as they crept into the quiet theater after dark.
"What do you think was the pivotal moment that made us all become friends?" Damien huffed, shivering a little as a draft swept across the backstage area they'd just snuck into, adding more creepiness to a setting that already had ton.
"Why?" Chuck scoffed, "feeling nostalgic?"
"No. I want to make a note of it. Because if they ever invent time travel, that's the first thing I'm going to go back and erase."
Ethan laughed too loudly, and Eric elbowed him to be quiet. The noise jumped across the walls of the empty theater, and they all startled. The pitch blackness of the space was beginning to toy with their eyesight, each of them catching shadows moving across the dark where there weren't any.
Blair pretended not to be spooked. Chuck refused to be.
There was no going back now. They'd already completed four of their seven tasks.
The rose Jenny had stolen was displayed proudly amongst their perfumes and pretty makeup tubes, to be returned once all their sins were committed. There had been murmurings about the missing statue, curious excitement among their fellow students and confusion among staff, but no one had any sure leads.
Diana still had a small cold from her skinny-dipping stint but would not shut up about how "badass" it had been. Her coral lace underwear still sat at the bottom of Naiad Pond—the freshwater that pooled just below the slope of grass outside of the dormitories—to one day drift ashore and into the hands of a very confused groundskeeper. Or a very fortunate freshman.
Ethan had carved their initials into one of the old walls of the Assembly Hall, albeit in his terrible handwriting, where they were delighted to find the initials of their predecessors still faintly marked in the wood as well.
Blair had traced over the AB, Audrey Bettencourt, repeatedly with pride, like she was trying to summon something in herself by doing so.
And Eric, who'd begrudgingly requested the least scandalous item on their list, had organized a lighthearted game of truth or dare on Romeo's Balcony, the very one that a drunken Chuck had teetered over the edge of the year prior, when Ethan was in the hospital after the pool incident as everything fell apart.
If that wasn't character development, they didn't know what was.
At least…it looked like it.
Now, they were summoning a ghost.
Blair refused to admit how ridiculous this was, adamant about seeing all their tasks through. As Damien surfaced the dusty spirit board he'd stolen from the props department, she silently forgave her predecessors for this dreadful idea. There must have been little else to do in an era without cell phones.
"Who was Henrietta Briar, anyway?" Ethan asked, lifting the board's planchette.
"One of Briar's founders," Eric explained, "if the last name doesn't ring a bell. I looked her up at the library. She was actually pretty cool. Really ahead of her time, and—"
"Well, you're just chockful of information, Little E," Blair mused, hovering over the board to stare at him, "it's a shame that you're not as good at keeping it all a secret."
Eric's skin went hot in the dark. "Blair, I've already apologized for telling William about the George Sand thing. I didn't know he would use it to sabotage you with the dean at Yale."
Blair rolled her eyes. "You didn't know a conniving person would do a conniving thing? It's a wonder how you manage to maintain that high GPA of yours."
"Come on, Blair—"
"Wait," Ethan interrupted, staring at Eric, "Why are you telling that guy anything? You've been hanging out with him?"
"I can't hang out with other people?" Eric frowned. "It's not like I took a blood oath to spend every single second with you guys."
"Actually, we did do that," Chuck smirked, recalling the Victors and Victrolas' initiation ceremony, each of them pinpricked except for Blair, who Chuck hadn't wanted to hurt. He took her hand now and circled the immaculately soft skin of her palm, and she bit her lip.
"Whatever," Ethan said, frustrated, "I just don't like the idea of—"
"Of what?" Eric rebutted. "You being the jealous one for once?"
"No fighting, children," Chuck tsk'ed. "Perhaps it's best to hash this out at the secret party I've been tasked to plan for Halloween. Kincaid will be in attendance."
"Ugh," Blair snapped, yanking her hand from Chuck's. "You invited that sabotaging snake? How could you?"
"It was a term of the deal I made with him to score an introduction with the dean's nephew that night at 116 Crown," Chuck explained, raising a brow at her. "An introduction that you so delightfully set fire to with your tantrum."
"Oh," Blair huffed quietly, embarrassed now, "well, fine. Perhaps his unfortunate presence will inspire my plot for his demise."
Chuck smiled and leaned to press a kiss to her cheek, near her ear. "Atta girl."
"Okay, can we fucking get on with this spooky shit?" Damien whisper-yelled, clearly cursing up a storm as a coping mechanism. "This place is seriously sketching me out."
"Chicken," Diana laughed.
They all stared down at the arched letters on the board. The wood was old, cracked in some places, stained ominously in others. There was a faraway sound, like a door closing somewhere in the building, and it made them all jump.
"Alright, well, we have to all sit facing each other," Damien muttered. Blair would have made fun of the pathetic whine in his voice, if she wasn't feeling so afraid herself. "One of us has to be the, Jesus, the medium. I guess that's supposed to be me. So, I'm the one who asks the questions. We all have to put our fingers on the little thing."
"Planchette," Jenny gently corrected. She hesitated a moment before placing a hand on Damien's back, feeling him relax just slightly under her touch.
She was way too sober for this.
Across the circle, Chuck had the same thought.
They all placed their fingers on the planchette and gasped. Perhaps it was in their heads, but the points at which they touched seemed to be charged with electricity.
"If I die tonight, I just want to say…"
"Damien," Blair hissed, "get on with it."
"Okay, okay. I looked it up, and I'm supposed to like, say something like, We're only welcoming good ghosts here. No evil shit, please."
Eric gave him a look. "Wow, are you reciting that from an ancient text?"
Damien swallowed. "Henrietta Briar, are you around?"
They waited, but the planchette didn't move.
"Even if I was dead, I would not be bored enough to entertain that question," Blair whispered.
Damien shot her a nasty look.
"Okay, Henrietta Briar, are you with us right now?"
They all made a sound as the planchette began to move, dragging slowly beneath their fingers until it landed over yes.
"Who the fuck is doing that?"
"It's not me."
"It's not me either."
"Chuck?"
"I can see why you would come to that conclusion," Chuck drawled, "but I prefer my women alive."
"Henrietta…" Damien began again, "is it true that that you haunt this theater? That you died here?"
The planchette moved slowly again, sliding to the s. Then across to another set of letters. S-t-a-g-e.
It was a rumor that had been well-passed around the student body at Briar. Apparently, the woman had spent her last days teaching theater at the school and had fallen from one of the stage props while reciting a monologue. Now, students swore that they could hear a whisper between the curtains now and then, a thud against the floorboards while rehearsing.
"Holy shit, why can't we just be normal people who watch movies and swap playlists for fun?"
Diana shifted, staring at the board intently now. "Ask her something else."
"Like what?"
"Ask her if that sleazy William Kincaid has another trick up his sleeve. I don't need anyone else out to get us this year," Blair said.
Damien nodded. "Any…more enemies we should worry about, Miss…er…Briar?"
Yes.
They all looked at each other. Ethan's hand shook. Eric swallowed. Jenny glanced at Diana, who was biting her lip so hard it might bleed. Blair shivered, and Chuck put an arm around her, slipping his fingers beneath her sleeve to ease the gooseflesh there.
Damien cleared his throat. "Well, who is it? Who do we need to be worried about?"
Their fingers trembled on the planchette, waiting for it to move, but it didn't.
Finally, it slid down to the edge of the board, and stopped at the letters printed on the bottom center.
Goodbye.
"I think we should stop now," Diana whispered. Blair peered through the darkness, frowning when she saw her friend staring at Chuck.
"We should," Blair agreed.
"We have to…say goodbye," Damien said. "It's an important rule."
"Goodbye," they whispered at the same time, a shaken chorus, none of them sure of who or what they were really saying it to.
:::
October 31st, 2008: The Old Willoughby Mansion
It was Halloween, Chuck Bass was Midas, and the old Willoughby mansion's skeletal remains dripped in gold under his touch. The house, which had once belonged to the first headmaster of Briar, Arnold Willoughby, stood far past the shed and sprawled across the fields a half mile off campus. It had been used for the occasional event over the years, even occupied by a few other esteemed headmasters, but it was repeatedly abandoned by its inhabitants and stood empty to this day.
Outside, it still appeared haunted by time under the night. But inside, it was lit with excitement. Candlesticks cast a warm glow across a hodgepodge of tables set with gilded glassware and silky sheets draped across designated lounge areas. Jazz stretched through an air perfumed with the smell of bourbon and lavender. All those invited had been given strict instructions on when to sneak away from school and how to reach the mansion unnoticed. They were trickling in slowly, dressed in frills and jewels, flapper dresses and nice suits that had gone wasted by the time spent far away from the nightly social events in Manhattan.
Of course, the theme was Prohibition. It was only right that a student body restless with school restrictions should have their very own speakeasy to release their inhibitions on the one night of the year that warranted it.
Their inner circle watched it all unfold, pleased that they were now being praised for the freedom they'd once been blamed for destroying.
"You've outdone yourself, Bass," Blair marveled, watching Willa Sheperd and Cynthia Van Sant admire her dress from afar and raise their champagne glasses in a toast to all of them.
Blair wasn't surprised. She wore a Jenny Humphrey original, but to the unknowing eye, it could have been pulled straight from a wardrobe in the 1920s, black and ivory beads threaded artfully into the most gorgeous silky fabric. Her hair was pinned up in glossy curls, her makeup mostly natural, save for the wispy false lashes curtaining her eyes and the deep red on her lips.
Jenny and Diana wore similar styles in yellow and emerald green, respectively. Because Jenny no longer had access to the costume department, they'd dug through Blair and Diana's old garments to give them new lives.
Just as Chuck had done with the mansion.
"I don't think there's a length I wouldn't go to put that look of pure satisfaction on your beautiful face," Chuck murmured, taking the shawl from her shoulders and draping it over his arm.
Blair smiled. "Want to bet?"
"I think we both lost the last wager we placed against each other."
"Or won," Blair said softly, smiling.
Chuck grinned back at her.
"Hello, friends."
Chuck and Blair snapped out of their intimate moment to see William Kincaid stroll up to them, wearing his uniform blazer and black slacks, particularly bland in the crowd of glitter and gleam. Blair blanched, and Ethan instantly put his arm around Eric.
"You really have to get a grip on reality, Kincaid," Chuck sighed, walking up to the boy. "Which reminds me…" He patted William's suit jacket until he found purchase in a black cell phone. "This will be confiscated for the night. I'm sure you understand, we don't do well with the press."
William's smile was so calm it was unnerving. "Understood. I'm simply here to have a fine time with all of you good people. I'm very grateful for this invitation."
"Yes, well," Chuck said, slightly amused, then turned to Blair, "Waldorf, I'd like to show you something, if you'll join me."
Blair cast one last dirty look at William, then took Chuck's arm and let him whisk her away.
Damien subtly took Jenny's hand and brought her over to one of the grand windows shattered by age and letting in the night air. Diana went to join Willa, Cynthia, and some other girls in some mindless chatter and drinking.
Which left William, Ethan, and Eric alone to deal with each other.
"Good to see you, Eric," William remarked. "Of course, I was hoping to see more of you after our coffee together."
Ethan's grip tightened on Eric just slightly. "Coffee?"
Eric shook his head. "Look, William, you kind of ruined any chance of that when you stole Blair's answer for your Yale interview. You used me for a plot against my friend. My real friend. You and I…we aren't that."
"Eric," William said evenly, "I apologize if you mistook that for some sort of scheme. Some things are really just coincidence—"
"I'm pretty sure he just told you to back off," Ethan seethed, releasing Eric to step closer to William.
William smiled at Ethan, not even flinching. "Don't you have a girlfriend to attend to?"
Ethan curled his fist, but Eric grabbed it, pulled him away.
"This is not worth it," Eric urged, stepping between the two. "Really, William. Whatever it is that you're trying to do here…it's not going to work. We've dealt with people like you before, and it didn't end well for them." Or us, he didn't say. "So please, leave us alone."
Eric and Ethan walked away, and William felt a flush of irritation as he stood alone amongst his tipsy peers, watching as they pressed each other against old picture frames, making out, clinking glasses, and laughing the night away.
Fine.
He reached into his pants pocket for a second cell phone, flipping it open to find the camera button.
That was just fine.
Across the room, Damien waited for Jenny to speak.
It was nice to see her dolled up, looking alive for the first time since the school year started. Concealer had brightened the shadows under her eyes. Her dress hugged her form more snuggly, as she couldn't avoid eating with them regularly in the dining hall again or getting rest when Blair demanded that they turn the lights off at night.
She shivered a bit, and he slid his suit jacket off to drape it over her shoulders.
"Thanks," Jenny whispered, watching as a boy from one of her classes jumped to reach a broken chandelier hanging from the ceiling but came up short. The group surrounding him burst into laughter. "It all seems so easy sometimes."
Damien frowned. "What does?"
"Everything," Jenny said. She looked at him again, feeling a little lightheaded. She'd taken a bit too much from her stash earlier, a medley she hadn't tried before, and it was beginning to hit her hard.
"Maybe some things are easy," Damien replied, "but you won't let them be."
Jenny sighed. "Okay, I'm sorry that I disappeared last summer. You didn't deserve that."
"I didn't. You didn't either. We both should've had time to…talk about what happened. I'm really worried about you."
"You don't worry about anything."
"Exactly, that's why this is a pain in the ass."
Jenny sighed. "What I'm going through right now, Damien, it really doesn't have anything to do with you."
Damien used the lapels of his jacket to bring her closer, kiss her on the forehead. "Of course it does. If it has to do with you, it has to do with me." He paused. "What are you on right now?"
Jenny blinked, pulled away from him. "What?"
"Your pupils are the size of a planet," Damien said, touching the spot of skin just below her eye. "You really think that I of all people can't tell? I was giving you some room to say something about it. Maybe I was hoping it would just go away if I ignored it, like everything in my life, but I'm not going to risk that with you."
"I—"
"Actually, I don't give a fuck what you're on," Damien sighed, "I want to know what we're going to do about it."
"The same thing we're doing about whatever you're on," Jenny said, an edge in her voice, "or whatever Chuck's on. Which is nothing. You're not my father, Damien."
"Yeah, thank fuck for that," Damien exclaimed, then stopped himself. "No offense to Mister Humphrey."
Jenny rolled her eyes.
Damien felt helpless. As much as he wanted to read her his riot act, there was nothing he could say to her that she wouldn't spit right back at him. He was a hypocrite to force her to stop doing something he was a connoisseur of. All he could do was try to stay close to her, take the inch she was giving him and work his way back into her life, figure out how to help her from there.
"What I mean to say is…I'm not your father, but I am your boyfriend," Damien said, touching her chin, "am I still right about that?"
I don't know anymore, Jenny thought, but she heard herself say, "Yes."
"Then let's act like it, Humphrey," he said, forcing himself to sound light and jovial when all he felt was worry and dread. He took her hand as the music shifted, a hoppy beat that everyone began to move to. She hesitated before dancing with him, letting herself fall into his arms, pressing her face to his chest and swaying there, where she couldn't see the frown on his face as he repeated, "Let's act like it."
Upstairs, Chuck was pulling Blair down a corridor where only a few of their guests had wandered to rendezvous away from the rest of the group. He pushed open the last door down the hall and pulled her inside, smiling as she let out a surprised sound. Candles were lit here, too, revealing a few large bookcases, some novels missing from their rows and scattered across the carpeted floor. There were lounge chairs against two corners of the room, and at the center of it sat a grand piano.
"Seeing you dressed like this," Chuck said, giving her an obvious once-over, from her black heels to the curl tucked behind her ear, "reminds me of my first time visiting Tolstoy's Lounge at the Russian Samovar."
"I remember that." Blair let him lead her to the piano. He closed its top and sat her on it, spreading her legs to step between them. She skimmed her fingers down the ivory lapels of his handsome black suit, detailed to match her dress. "I was with you. We went with Nate and Serena. Of course, I don't remember much of it. You all pressured me into getting disastrously drunk."
They both smiled at the fond memory. They had all gotten disastrously drunk, and it was criminal that no one had kicked them out at their young age. But Blair supposed that the Platinum AmEx Chuck had flashed had a lot to do with that.
For a moment, despite everything, Blair missed her old friends, wondered how they were celebrating Halloween, wondered if they had any idea that she and Chuck were in this elegant old mansion, hosting a secret party under the full moon, getting drunk off the spirits and each other.
No, not even she could have dreamed of this back on the Upper East Side.
"You danced," Chuck recalled, kissing the corner of her lips. He slid his hands up her thighs, stopping right at the hem of her dress.
"I did not."
"You did," Chuck laughed. "You simply adored what the man was playing on the piano and said something like, You know, I've got moves."
Blair rolled her eyes, placing her hands over his on her legs. "You're absolutely lying."
"I'm absolutely not," Chuck hummed, moving his hands just an inch higher, kissing her neck. "The sight of you swaying your hips to that tune, that demure look you gave over your shoulder, is ingrained in my memory."
"Stashed in your mental file of my most humiliating moments, I'm sure," Blair pouted, though her eyes were rolling back as Chuck grabbed hold of her hips beneath her dress.
"Stashed in my mental file of your sexiest moments," Chuck corrected. "I was so jealous that Archibald's was the lap you fell into at the end of the night, not mine."
Blair pulled back to look at him. "Jealous? Even then?"
Chuck kissed her again, murmuring against her lips, "For as long as I can remember." He savored the sound Blair made then, practically tasting it. "I once had this silly dream that I'd buy a piano bar someday. Something more exclusive, elaborate, like stepping back in time. But when I laid out the plan for my father, he called it silly. Told me that a piano bar would be a frivolous and outdated venture."
Blair kissed him back, traced the line of his jaw. "It's not silly, Chuck, it's brilliant. Your father doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Everyone in the city is seeking a timelessness, an escape. There'd be a line out the door." She smiled, touched the shell of the piano beneath her. "Would you play there?"
"I—"
"Oh, mon Dieu, I'm very sorry. I didn't know you were here."
Blair and Chuck jumped apart at the interruption, and Blair's face fell when she saw who it was. Eva, that irritating French bombshell wearing her signature white shift dress and effortless blonde waves. The one who kept popping up like a guest character who no one would just write off the damn show.
"Hi, Chuck," she chirped, smiling at him a second too long for Blair's liking, then curtly, "Hi, Blair. Thank you for inviting me to the party. It's magnifique."
And then she was gone, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her.
Chuck seemed unbothered by the interruption, resuming his path beneath Blair's dress, leaning to kiss her, which earned a light shove to his chest.
"Why is she here?"
"Eva?"
"No, Marilyn Monroe," Blair hissed. "Yes, Eva."
"Because I invited her," Chuck said, as if it were obvious.
Blair took a deep breath to calm herself. "Why?"
Chuck tilted his head at her, confused. "It's not a big mystery, Waldorf. She's quite masterful at the piano herself and offered to assist me in my own…musical endeavors. I thought it would be equally as generous to extend an invitation to the party."
"Is that why you've been so cagey?" Blair accused. "Why you never let me join you when you go play? Because the empty spot beside you on the bench is already being kept warm by the patron saint of boyfriend-stealing?"
"What? You seriously can't be jealous," Chuck said, incredulous.
"I'm not jealous," Blair seethed, clearly lying. "I just thought I was done making room for the other girls in your life."
There came that feeling again. The forgotten opera. The bow stashed in her drawer.
Mrs. Reginald's words: Even though the thought of that might hurt more than accepting they won't.
"You are the girl in my life, Waldorf. Singular. You have been since those heels first stepped into Briar's halls."
He could see the gears turning behind her delicate features, refusing to be moved by his romantic line, wracking her brain for another cutting response.
"Look," Chuck continued before she could think of one. "I was in need of access to the music room, and some lessons to brush up on my skills…" He was vaguely aware that his phrasing wasn't exactly doing him a favor. He wanted to explain to her that all this had nothing to do with Eva and everything to do with the escape playing each note offered him, further than a tab on his tongue. But he couldn't. "And she just happened to be able to provide that at a time when you and I weren't exactly together."
"Oh, so she's a pretty, French coincidence," Blair marveled sarcastically. She felt nauseous, wondered where the bathroom was in this grand place. "That makes me feel so much better."
Chuck pinched the bridge of his nose, stepped away from her. Blair pulled down the skirt of her dress, sliding off the piano.
"I'm not going to fight with you," he sighed, sitting on one of the chairs by a pile of fallen books. "All of this," he gestured to the door, where the sounds from the party were drifting in, "is for you. It's all been for you. What more evidence do you need that you have nothing to worry about?"
For a moment, he looked like Jay Gatsby, slicked hair and gorgeous suit, standing in the shadows of this incredible mansion, a party he'd thrown in the name of her affection raging below.
Blair pursed her lips, thinking of that bow again.
She had a choice now, had always had this choice: imprison herself in what things were supposed to be or invent what they could become. Perhaps Chuck looked like Gatsby, but she felt like him, so caught up in a broken dream that she refused to see the promising one right in front of her.
"I'm not going to fight with you either," Blair finally said, nearing the chair he sat in. "It's rather exhausting."
Chuck smirked, relaxing in his seat. "That's what happens when you have an opponent who's your equal."
Suddenly, a piano song began to play downstairs, only a little muted by the old floors. From what Blair could remember, it sounded like the one that had provoked her to dance at the Russian Samovar all those years ago.
"You know," she said, inching towards him, reaching up to touch the strap of her dress, "I've got moves."
Chuck kept his eyes on her. "Remind me."
A/N: Well, hi delinquents. Bet you didn't expect this last present under your tree. Honestly, I didn't either. You have no idea how many times I returned to my draft of this chapter, feeling older and different and at many times questioning whether I would (or could) finish this. As with many things, time has passed and my relationship to Gossip Girl and Chair has changed in some ways and remained in others, but Wires feels like something beyond it to me.
I sat down one cold night to read this near decade-long tale and felt like I had passed through an ivy-draped portal into the world of Briar again. The escape I built brick by brick. In hindsight, there are so many things I might have written differently, but I like that who I was at the time is memorialized this way. Every chapter is littered with bits of my old lives, penned by different versions of myself, so I really hope you liked this one.
Four chapters left. Although delayed gratification is a big theme for us, I'll try not to make you wait so long this time. xo, N