Title: When The Devil Can't Save Himself
Word Count: n/a yet
Rating: PG-13, maybe R at one point
Warnings/Spoilers: All of season 1, aired season 2 and spoilers for episodes 2.13 through 2.15.
Summary: Bart Bass. Shot. Dead. Murdered. Chuck Bass was broken, and he was pretty sure he couldn't be fixed. That wouldn't stop her from trying.
Official Disclaimer: All Gossip Girl plots and characters belong to Cecily von Ziegeser, Josh Schwartz and the CW. I do not own the company or the people. The characters featured in this story are not mine.
Author's Note: I'm so sorry this chapter took a little longer than usual to get up, and I don't know if it's up to standards, since I keep getting inspiration for later chapters and none for this middle part. Also, because I wrote the first part, the Lily/Chuck scene last night with a pounding headache and today I've been out skiing all day and then at a party, so I'm exhausted. I'm so sorry if this isn't very good, guys. Later chapters will be better, I promise. More Jack Bass next chapter, too, and some Chuck and Blair interaction. :D
As days passed, Lily noticed that Jack's constant presence was doing Chuck no good. He was still always hungover and exhausted, dark circles and bags under his eyes. She would always spot him sprawled on one of the white living room couches or lying with eyes closed on his bed, dressed in nothing but a pair of silk boxers or one of his intricately designed velvet bathrobes. He was never without a glass of scotch in his hand and a joint between his fingers, drowning himself in amber liquid and sucking in chemicals.
Lily also noticed that Blair didn't seem to stop by anymore. She watched in the morning, when the sun was peaking up over the tips of the skyscrapers and at night, when the lights glittered like jewels against another dark, moonless sky, but she saw nothing. Chuck went to bed alone and woke up the same way to begin the same routine, day after day.
Jack was staying in one of the guest rooms, although he did little but order around the maids and drain large amounts of the liquor cabinet. He had yet to really speak to Chuck about what had happen, and he didn't seem eager to. Whenever Lily had passed by his door on the way to her room at night, she'd seen him hunched over the dark wood desk, a single work light illuminating the cream-colored sheets in his hand as he studied them with the eye of a hawk. Sheets that were covered in tiny fonts and signatures at the bottoms. Sheets that Lily couldn't see from the bedroom door. Sheets that, after a few days, she'd given up on trying to see, although she was still intensely curious and even more so worried about Mr. Jack Bass's real reason for returning to the city.
It was early still. Golden and pink sunlight was just peeking over the tops of the large, shining silver buildings that surrounded them, and already the roads were busy: limos and cars and trucks and taxis rushing and whirling them off to their final destination. Lily knocked on the door to Chuck's bedroom and after getting no response, pushed it open with a gentle hand.
He was huddled under the covers, fast asleep, hands gripping the blanket near his face like a child. His eyes were shut peacefully, and he looked so sweet and at ease with his long, dark lashes and soft mess of chocolate brown hair and the slightest tinge of pink on his pale cheeks. Lily felt that if she even reached to tap him on the shoulder and wake him, she would be disrupting some kind of art, something beautiful and peaceful and perfect.
Instead of attempting to wake Chuck, Lily looked around the room. Modern art hung on the walls and several of Chuck's scarves were draped over chairs and bunched on his bedside table. A couple of books full of torn out pages and bright highlighter markers littered the soft, white carpet, along with a large assortment of black clothing: jeans and button-downs, dress pants, pinstriped suits, ties, bowties…the works.
As she was about to turn back to the task that brought her to Chuck's room in the first place, something caught Lily's eyes. A framed picture of a beautiful young woman with deep dark hair in a bun and Chuck's eyes and cheekbones sat on his dresser. It had been pushed back and surrounded with other mindless photos of Nate and Chuck, Chuck and Blair, Chuck and Serena, partying, smiling, laughing, drinks in hand and bright lights of a club around them.
She couldn't take her eyes off the back picture, though. His mother. It had to be. He had shoved it practically against the wall; as if he was trying to forget about it, forget about her. Lily felt a stinging realization. No one had taught the boy how to live and no one had certainly told him how to love. Chuck might act like he didn't need anyone and he was perfectly capable of handling things on his own, but deep inside he was still a little boy, living his childhood through a simple picture and a promise from his dead father that things would get better.
"Lily?" Chuck's eyes opened slowly as he blinked the sleep out of them and attempted to sit up, his hands pressing against the heap of pillows his dark head had just been leaning against.
"Oh, hello, Charles." Lily tore her eyes away from the picture and looked down at Chuck. The blankets were wrapped around his entire body, and she guessed he probably wasn't wearing much underneath. "I was just thinking that you should try and go back to school today."
"Why?" His eyes were wide and innocent, a first. "I don't want to." He sounded like a desperate little child, on his way to his very first day of kindergarten. "I'm not…" Every breath Chuck took was shaky, forced. "I'm not ready. Please, just one more day."
"You've been saying that for a while now, Chuck." Lily sat on the edge of his bed and looked into the eyes of the defiant teenager in front of her. "I think it's time you…both of us…faced things. Maybe there's more out there than…" Lily gestured to the half-empty bottle of scotch on his desk and the disastrous state of his room. "…this."
Chuck sighed, clenching his jaw as he firmly set his perpetual mask in place. "Whatever you say," he muttered, a rough edge to his voice already.
Within a half hour, Chuck was showered and fully dressed, looking better than he had in weeks. He stared in the mirror, his sharp profile and squinted brown eyes glinting back at him. His wet brown hair was combed to the side and his signature scarf was in place over a yellow button-down shirt, tie and his St. Jude's blazer, somewhat of a teenage security blanket against the whispered rumors that were sure to follow him through the courtyard and into his classes today.
Sure enough, the moment shoe met pavement and he stepped out of his limo, the glossy heads of Constance girls and preppy haircuts of St. Jude's boys turned to stare. Cell phone buttons were clicking eagerly in their hands, alerting their friends, friends of friends, and of course, Gossip Girl, of Chuck's return. Chuck was sure that within moments she would have a section of pictures and a post dedicated to his several week absence. He didn't even care anymore. He just felt sort of empty, ghostly. Numb.
As Chuck made his way down the boys' hall, Dan Humphrey approached him from behind. His eyes were wide and his face was shaved clean, making him look more innocent than Chuck knew he was. Much more.
"Hey, Chuck." Dan fell into step beside him as if they were old friends. Chuck stared to glare at him, his upper lip curling in disgust.
"Humphrey." Chuck turned away, disdain obvious in his voice. So there was no feeling in his arms or legs or heart, but one thing he hadn't completely blocked from his memory was his extreme hate for Dan fucking Humphrey. Dan fucking Humphrey and his entire fucking family, with their dumb ass Brooklyn loft and all of their "morals." Morals? If you could call being partially responsible for the orphaning of a seventeen-year-old boy having goddamn morals.
Chuck's breath caught in his throat and he stopped in his tracks, hoping Dan would continue on ahead and he would have a moment to collect himself. This first day had barely started and already he was both depressed and fired up. Having that combination bubbling deep inside of him made Chuck sick to his stomach, as even being near Humphrey made it harder to push other thoughts and memories to the back of his mind. Including ones about beautiful brunette princesses with deep brown eyes and perfect red lips…
Dan's voice interrupted Chuck's train of guilty thoughts as he spoke. "So, listen, I wanted to say I'm sorry, for the story, for what happened at the funeral…"
"You want to say you're sorry? After all of that, you think sorry is going to cut it?" Chuck wanted to scream those words with every bit of air he had left in his lungs, wanted to have them, everything, out in the open. But opening up to Dan Humphrey was a mistake, he'd learned. A big one. If it hadn't been for the one stupid night, for those couple of stupid drinks and that stupid high-class hooker slut whose boyfriend Dan had slammed to the ground, everything would be the same. Nothing would be perfect, but everything would be better. Better than this, anyway. Better than this loneliness, this emptiness, this nothing feeling right.
But instead of letting those words fall from his lips, Chuck snarled something else instead. "Oh, really, Brooklyn? Did your daddy tell you to apologize to me? Did he tell you it was the right thing to do? Because, let me inform you of the fact that I don't think it is."
Dan stood in front of Chuck, a ratty-looking sweater over the button-down below his blazer and his face twisted and confused. "Wait, Chuck…"
Chuck flicked up the longest of his five fingers in one of his favorite crude gestures and strode past Dan. "Fuck off."
Blair sat in history class that morning, anxiously tapping her ballpoint pen against her black and white notebook. She was trying to keep her attention on the teacher's rambling of facts, writing them down in her neat, even penmanship, but even staring at the longest list of ancient wars couldn't stop the pounding of her heart.
She had obviously gotten the message from Gossip Girl, opened her phone to find dozens of messages from classmates and others, wondering what she knew about where Chuck was, why he was gone. The speculations were already flying: rehab, the Ostroff Center, a month in Monaco. None of them were correct, but Blair couldn't stand to say anything, either. She hadn't spoken to Chuck since that one morning a little over a week ago, when he'd told her for the second time to stay out of his life. She had begun to doubt that he'd return to St. Jude's and had to practically restrain herself from leaving fifty messages on his phone. She was giving him his space. That's what he wanted, right? If she was doing everything that he told her to do; stay away from him, leave him alone; then why did she still feel like she wasn't doing enough?
Most likely because she wasn't doing anything. Chuck wanted her to stay away, but for some reason she felt lost without him, even this grieving maniac he'd become, and she wished he'd feel the same way too.
When the bell rang, Blair quickly collected her things and pushed open the door, her high heels clicking against the floor as she headed out into the courtyard, wearing only a blouse and a patterned red and blue sweater to shield her from the cold air. She spotted Serena sitting at a table in a long cream-colored coat and a matching scarf, her butter blond hair blowing in the wind. But before Blair could make her way over there, something caught her eye.
Blair saw a figure leaning up against the wall a ways away. He had a joint rolled in his hand and long puffs of smoke where emitting from his perfectly shaped lips. She panned her eyes up his body, from his shoes to his navy pants and yellow shirt and tie and blazer and…scarf. It was Chuck.
Blair froze in place, staring at him, all kinds of nervousness running through her veins. There he was, as dark and handsome as ever, but with a paler tint to his skin and a harder look to his eyes, like he was closed off from the world. For good this time.
She saw his cheeks suck in as he took another long drag, his shoes toeing at something on the ground as he directed his eyes that way as well. He wasn't wearing a coat. She could see the redness on his hands and cheeks and wondered how long he'd been standing out here in the frigid winter air.
"Mr. Bass?" The headmistress, Ms. Queller, stepped through the double doors and immediately spotted her obviously least favorite rebellious teenager. "What do you think you're doing?"
Blair watched everything unfold with a front-row seat, but instead she was wishing she was somewhere else as she saw Ms. Queller step directly in front of Chuck. He paused halfway through the inhale with the joint still in his mouth, and instead of dropping it with a sheepish smile, he dragged in another stream of chemical and stared defiantly into her eyes. Blair could see that from even far away, Chuck's irises were hard and almost black. She could hardly imagine what they must look like up close. A lock of hair fell into his face, and he looked very much like a villain with the slicked back darkness atop his head and his even darker eyes.
Blair was afraid. This wasn't the Chuck she knew. This was someone completely different. Gone was the vulnerable young boy; in his place was an angry almost-adult, a monster full of sadness and a pain he couldn't escape.
Author's Note Thank you so much for reading. I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, so if you could review and tell me what you liked/disliked, that was be really helpful and amazing. :) I didn't get as many reviews as usual last time, but a giant 'thank you' goes to those who did: xxktnxx, fizliz23, Princess Persephone, bookworm455, princetongirl, bluestriker666, TheCutie, IHeartOTH05, suspensegirl, NaturalDisaster521 and Piccolo Chic. Please, please, please keep reading and reviewing. It means so much to me. :)