A/N: I'M BACK! I can't believe I haven't updated this story in over a month. I'm so, so sorry. I've been ridiculously busy, as well as sick, like, three times, and now I'm on a spring break vacation in Mexico and it took me about a week to write the last two parts of this chapter, considering I had like no time to write. But I promised myself I'd get this up by the end of the weekend, and this is pretty close, right? :) As for the thing that happens at the end of the chapter (being as vague as I can), I really wanted to build up to it more, but there really wasn't much else I could do to show his emotion during that scene. The basic point is, he's lost everything and he isn't sure what to do with himself. Up until now he always had one thing going for him, but now he's lost it all. I've tried to show Chuck slowly loosing it throughout the story. :P Oh, and about the Jack thing, I TOTALLY had that idea before the show, so I decided to use it anyway, only slightly changed. And no Blair this chapter, but she'll be back. I think there's going to be one more chapter left to this, plus an epilogue, but we'll see. Enjoy!
SPECIAL WARNING: This chapter contains several mentions of suicide and suicide attempts. There aren't many details, but just be cautious if that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable.
NOTE: I added a quote from Breakfast At Tiffany's, which I just recently saw for the first time (and loved, obviously). I thought it sort of echoed this chapter a tiny bit, that Chuck is running away from himself but can't seem to escape it...? I don't know, maybe I just like the quote. But I named the chapter after it, so... :D
"You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-You-Are? You're chicken. You've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, 'Okay life's a fact. People do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness.' You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, and you're terrified somebody's going to stick you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somaliland. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself."
- Breakfast At Tiffany's
Sliding back onto the cream-colored, ultramodern-but-surprisingly-comfortable couch in the van der Bass penthouse, Chuck cradled yet another tumbler of scotch in his palm. He twirled it between his fingertips, watching the amber liquid splash up against the side of the heavy glass. He had been drinking all afternoon, but his head was still infuriatingly clear. Damn the incredible drinking tolerance he'd perfected over the years. Lately, Chuck had been wishing he was more of a lightweight like Serena, able to be deliriously excited and completely out of it after only a brightly colored cocktail, a few miniature vodka shots or simply a glass of the incredibly expensive amber liquid he was drinking now. Sadly, that didn't seem to work for him.
It would have been useful right about then, though. Chuck was trying desperately to forget about everything that had happened that morning, but it still echoed shrilly in his mind: Jack's shouts; that tingly, stomach-dropping, nervous feeling that had shot from his toes to the top of his brunette head at the news he was now CEO of one of the most esteemed multi-billion-dollar companies in the world; the look Blair had given him when he'd passed her outside of the office and the one he'd given back. Hers was a gaze of incredible longing and it sucked him in, tearing his heart into pieces as the elevator doors slid slowly closed in front of him. Separated, again. Would they ever find their way back to each other?
With the way he'd been acting lately, he kind of doubted it.
But yet, he couldn't seem to stop. The pain, the aching grief from his father's death, still weighed him down in everything he did. Sometimes he would wake up after another long night of debauchery, the fat rays of yellow sunlight streaming through the windows and thick curtains, and have that simple feeling of blissful peace…until reality set in. It hurt more every day. Instead of healing over time, Chuck's agony kept growing worse.
And that required more and more scotch.
As Chuck refilled his glass, he heard the elevator doors slide open and the sudden sound of shoes on the floor. A pair of black-wool-pant-clad legs appeared around the corner, followed by a long black wool coat, a pastel dress shirt and then Jack's head, a smirk twisting his lips and his hair perfectly combed. He looked calm and collected, not like he'd just had a screaming fit in a meeting a few hours prior.
"Chuck!" Jack's smirk grew wider at the sight of his nephew lounging back against a couch, twirling a tumbler of sparkling liquid in one hand, the other hanging loosely over the edge, his fingertips trailing on the soft, carpeted floor.
"Jack." Chuck struggled to sit up, almost dropping his glass in the process. He narrowed his red-rimmed eyes. "What do you want?"
Jack shrugged as he walked over to Chuck's place, pursing his lips in that indecisive, casual way that only Basses can. "Well, I am staying here now. I just thought I would see if you wanted to…"
"Get out," Chuck interrupted, his rough voice rising slightly and his blood boiling. He felt as if everyone was manipulating him all of a sudden, that everyone was conspiring to make his life hell.
Jack's face wrinkled with a mask of genuine confusion. "What? I…"
"No, get out. You're going to blame me for something I can't control? Then leave." Chuck smacked his scotch down on the glass coffee table with a bang. "Maybe I don't even want Bass Industries! Maybe I'd rather they just give it to you and be done with it! That's the way it's supposed to be, isn't it? I'll just get my money and go off and party like the stupid, unworthy teenager I am, and you'll be here running the company." Chuck's angry shouts grew louder as he stood up, facing Jack as he spat the last words. "If you want it, you can have it."
Jack shook his head, stepping backwards slightly. "Chuck, the real reason I came back here was to apologize. I really am sorry for this morning."
Chuck eyed him doubtfully, scooping up his scotch to take another long swig. It was hard to believe that Jack could change gears so swiftly, but maybe he'd had some time to calm down. Chuck started to regret his outburst, rethinking his shouted decision to give the company to Jack. A decision he hadn't even thought through. Maybe he did want it. There had to be something he'd done that had shown his father that he had potential. Was the Victrola project or his courting of the Brooklyn Inn bar? Did it even matter? Maybe he'd even be good at running a business. He had always had an eye for numbers.
Jack continued his little speech. "You're Bart's son. It is your rightful place. If you running the company is what Bart wanted, I don't think we should deny him his wishes, should we?"
Chuck shook his head slowly, absorbing this information with a small smile on his face. His stomach jumped with the joy of a victory, finally, finally, after what seemed like an eternity of losses.
Jack reached forward and clapped a large hand on Chuck's shoulder, shaking him slightly with the force of the movement. "So, what do you say we go out tonight? You know, to celebrate your new position as CEO?"
Chuck sighed, staring down at the glass in his hand. He suddenly felt very tired, and he kind of just wanted to curl up under his Egyptian-cotton sheets and soft, worn duvet and sleep away any negative thoughts he was having. "I don't know," he answered finally. "I think it would probably be best if I stayed. Tomorrow's a Monday, and I'll probably need to go into the office and see if I can get some help getting started." A small smile graced Chuck's lips as the words rolled off them. He felt so professional saying that: older, confident, responsible. Not like a seventeen-year-old screw-up and semi-alcoholic playboy whom everyone, probably including the girl he loved, detested beyond belief.
Jack let out a low, throaty laugh and shook his head, wrapping an arm around Chuck's shoulders and leading him forward. "Nonsense. And besides, I invited some friends that I don't think you'll want to miss out on…"
Just then, the elevator dinged again and the sound of high heels echoed where Jack's polished black shoes had just been. A group of girls rounded the corner, their lip gloss glinting in the jewel-like city lights that sparkled outside the large windows. Their curvy, long-legged figures were draped in tiny silk cocktail dresses in shades of gold, silver and ruby red; their feet were tucked into glistening stilettos; and luxurious fur coats shielded their body from the cold air outside. They were completely slutty and trashy and probably dumb as hell, but they were exactly what Chuck needed.
Seeing the kid-in-a-candy-store look upon Chuck's face, Jack put a hand on his shoulder and led him outside, pausing only to grab him a long gray coat from the closet and slip his own sleek cell phone into his pocket.
Leaning back, Chuck tipped his martini glass, pouring yet another clear, limey vodka cocktail down his throat. It wasn't nearly as strong as the vintage scotch he usually drank, but it was the only kind that made him blissfully drunk, instead of just feeling lonely and depressed. The lightheaded, room-spinning feeling reminded him of when he was younger and he, Nate, Serena and…and Blair…would bribe the bartenders at the Palace to serve them martinis or sneak alcohol from their parents liquor cabinets and drink it on the roof of one of their apartment buildings. It was probably around then that Chuck had gained his fondness for rooftops. Those were good memories. He wasn't sure if things would ever be that good again.
He drained another glass, smacking it down on the table as his head began to, finally, spin and intoxication overcame him.
One of the girls (or models or actresses or prostitutes, you could never be sure with Jack) leaned over from where she was perching on the long, glossy black bar in the downtown hotel suite Jack had reserved for the night. Her long, tanned, curvy legs were draped partway across his lap and her dress was so low-cut, he could see down it without hardly looking. This all put a drunkenly happy smile on his face as the girl carefully slid down onto his lap, beginning to kiss his neck.
Two of the girls were attending to Jack, straddling his lap and taking turns leaving traces of shining red lip gloss down his collarbone as they unbuckled his belt. Even in his inebriated state, Chuck had to turn away in disgust before he saw more of his uncle than he ever wanted to see.
But then a few more girls came over to Chuck and were suddenly all around him, the musky smell of their perfume trailing in the air. He didn't know if these were the girls they came with or others, and he didn't really care. He let them kiss him, let them drop his silk tie to the polished black marble floor, let them unbutton his shirt with their long, Chanel-bright-red-polish-lacquered fingers and let himself forget everything and everyone and lose himself in the pleasure that he hadn't had in what felt like forever.
And at just the right moment, Jack was there to slid his cell phone out of his pocket, flip it open, and take several rapid-fire shots. Send.
Chuck was in somewhat of a good mood the next morning. The insistent hangover that had persisted since his father's death was finally beginning to subside, despite how much he'd had the drink the previous night. Apparently, after over a month of drinking nothing but extremely strong, burning scotch or whiskey and doing hard, dangerous drugs, his body wasn't even reacting to the less harmful things he'd ingested last night.
He hadn't slept well, though. When the Bass limo had brought Chuck and Jack back to the penthouse, he'd been exhausted. But after undressing (for the second time that evening) and sliding between his Egyptian cotton sheets and soft duvet, he couldn't seem to make sleep come. Maybe it was the fact that, about twenty-four hours prior, he'd been lying between Blair's silk sheets, wrapped in her father's pajamas and just…all of her. He could still smell the scent of her rose perfume and vanilla sugar shampoo lingering on his skin, and he hated it. He really did. He hated the fact that he hadn't been able to sleep because she wasn't next to him, comforting him. He hated that every time he opened his eyes in the morning, he was secretly praying that her head of thick, dark curls would be resting next to his on the pillow. And most of all, he hated the fact that he missed her. A lot.
Shaking the thoughts from his head, he allowed himself a smile at the Bass Industries receptionist as he headed to the elevator. His father's office and those of his closest assistants and employees took up an entire floor, and he'd had the number memorized since he was barely able to walk.
When Chuck opened the thick, ornately carved dark wood doors to his father's huge office, he was surprised to see Jack sitting behind his father's, no, his desk. The late morning sunlight glinted through the wide windows, facing the bustling city streets and illuminating the Jack's dark brown hair to a lighter gold. He was going through paperwork, scribbling on sheet upon sheet of thick, cream-colored paper and tucking each carefully-typed piece into a selection of beige file folders.
Suspicion and anger crept into Chuck's bones as he watched his uncle work, and his next word came off his lips with a tremor of anger and a tremble of fear. "Jack?"
Looking up at his nephew, Jack continued to busy his hands with his work. The look in his eyes was knowing yet innocent, like he had a secret that he was taking great pleasure in keeping from him. "Chuck." He smiled a close-lipped, incredibly fake smile as he set the last folder on top of the pile and pushed back the large, gold-and-Italian-leather chair, resting his feet on the dark brown desk. "What can I do for you?"
"What are you doing in my chair?" Chuck edged closer to the desk, staring Jack down with his infamous look. Never mind how strange it was to call the antique leather desk chair that his father had sat in practically ever since the company had made enough money for its Wall Street address his…the feel, even the smell, of being in his father's office began to make Chuck feel strange, almost ill. It was just too familiar…too much Bart's…
Jack cleared his throat and stood up, the bottom of his dark navy suit jacket just skimming the tabletop as he moved towards where Chuck was rooted in place. "You didn't get my calls?"
"What calls?" Chuck fished around in his pockets for his touch-screen phone, but came up empty. He must have left it at the apartment. He had been sure it was turned on last night, when he'd last seen it, though. Chuck suddenly felt a sneaking suspicion that Jack hadn't called and wanted him to show up at the office so he could rub something in his face. The question was what?
Jack shook his head, dismissing the question, and his smirk grew wider. Grinning stupidly, he pulled out his own phone from his pocket and tossed it to Chuck. "It's not your chair anymore, kid."
Chuck felt the blood drain from his already-pale face and his hands shook violently as he gripped Jack's cell. "What are you talking about? What's going on?" It seemed like the only words out of his mouth this morning were questions. Who, what, when, where, why? What the fuck was happening?
"You should have read the fine print." Jack pulled out a printer-paper copy of Bart's will from the top file folder and let his dark-brown-lashed eyes flick over it. "It specifies that should you in any way act inappropriately, the board has the option to replace you." He looked up, meeting Chuck's shocked almost black eyes with a haughty, mischievous smile. "And they picked me."
Chuck's throat closed achingly tight and his stomach churned reflexively. He couldn't seem to find his voice to speak and instead felt his whole body trembling. He looked down at his hands and saw they were stark white. Clearing his throat, he choked out, "What did I do?"
Jack smirked again. "You even have to ask?" He gestured to the phone clutched in Chuck's sweaty palm and he reluctantly flipped it open, almost scared of what was going to appear.
And his pretense was correct, because the photos inside were downright scary. They were risqué and wild and disgusting, worse than the photos he'd gotten of the Skull and Bones kids back in the fall and weirder than any messed up porn he'd ever seen, because they were of him.
There was Chuck with his head thrown back; draining a martini glass while a curvy girl with wild bleach-blond waves kissed his neck. Chuck with his pants around his ankles, straddled by two exotic, stick-thin models wearing nothing but red silk-and-lace underwear and dark lipstick. Chuck feeding several scantily clad girls chocolate-covered strawberries on a hotel's plush Egyptian cotton duvet. And then there were more revealing shots of him in various states of undress, sexual ecstasy, and complete inebriation. It was clear that Jack had continued taking pictures well into the night.
Apparently, it didn't matter to the board that his uncle had been in the same place, doing the same things. He was a consenting adult, and Chuck was just a messed up kid.
Choking up, Chuck violently whipped the phone in Jack's general direction. He felt sick and tired and upset and lost and scared, but also incredibly guilty, like he was letting his father down. He wanted to throw himself down on the soft carpeting at Jack's feet, sobbing and begging for forgiveness and a second chance, but that wasn't his style. He was Chuck Bass. Life just worked out for him, or so it seemed. Little did anyone know, he'd always kept the dangerous thoughts and feelings inside. No one knew what Chuck was really thinking, and combined with the copious amounts of alcohol and drugs he had access to, it was a particularly deadly combination.
Slamming open the white-painted door to Palace Hotel Suite 1812, Chuck threw his coat in the general direction of the luxurious, silk-duvet-covered bed and kicked his shoes off onto the plush carpet. His eyes were watering, and he knew it wasn't from the cold wind that whipped about the tall green trees in Central Park. He had spent the afternoon in a dirty dive bar in Brooklyn, trying (and failing) to get drunk on gross warm beer in a place where no one would recognize him, and now a steady pouring of rain pattered against the large glass windows. Chuck shoved the thick velvet curtains over them to shield his eyes from the cold, dark, vacant expanse of the city. It was strange how the weather changed with his mood. In the morning, when he'd been happy and feeling light on his feet, the sun had poured through the windows and the air had been crisp and cool. Now it was foggy and wet, with dark clouds looming above the city's buildings in an ominous fashion.
The reason why Chuck had come here rather than gone back to the contemporary-style penthouse apartment he now somewhat tentatively called home was because he wanted to be alone. He didn't want the shadow of Lily's thin, blonde figure hovering over him, wondering if he was all right and offering him tea or ice cream or whatever. He didn't want Serena's voice to echo through the walls as she talked on the phone and flipped through a glossy fashion magazine. He didn't want Eric, especially not Eric, because Eric would know exactly what to say to stop him. And Chuck didn't want to be stopped.
Opening one of the dark wood cabinets under the bar, Chuck pulled out an unopened bottle of scotch, the strongest he had. From a small drawer he pulled the little amber-tinted container, filled with tiny, bright white pills. Sliding onto a dark leather stool, he began to count them out onto a quivering palm. One, two, three…oh, the hell with it. He shook it again and several more fell out onto his hand, contrasting only slightly with his pale skin.
Chuck stared down at the tablets on his hand without a bit of fear. He had lost everything, everyone. Everything he thought he could live without, thought he didn't need, wished he didn't need. The company was Jack's and Chuck didn't have the chance to prove that he was every bit his father's son and completely capable of holding onto his legacy. Nate had never really cared about him. Well, he must have at some point, but he'd been to distracted lately to have it really matter at all what Chuck did. He was sure Eric had grown tired of his problems, complaints and grievances over the last few months, and Serena had really only tolerated him anyway.
Blair…Blair was no longer his either. He was sure she hated him, hated everything he done to hurt, every way he'd hurt her and broken her heart. And his father, who had always hated him and was always disappointed in him from the day he was born, was dead. That was the final straw, the pain pushing him to close his eyes tightly as wet, salty tears poured their way down his cheeks. It was the pain pushing him to crack open the bottle of scotch. It was the pain pushing him to toss the pills into his waiting mouth and follow them with a long swig straight from the bottle.
He didn't want to die, not really.
A/N: Okay, because I know I'm going to get asked, I'll tell you one thing: Chuck is not dead. I know that totally ruined the shock factor of that last line, but I figure it had to be said. I'll let you guess about what sort of state he's in, though. I never said he was perfectly fine. :P Also, about the style I'm writing this, I know it's going to come up eventually that I'm really descriptive, and my sentences are, like, extremely long, because of that. But I won't change that, because I think that's what makes my writing a little unique. I write it how I want to read it, and that is with lots of detail. :) Thanks to everyone who reviewed last time: bookworm455, AAnnieN, fizliz23, Doxeh, joliane, Princess Persephone, princetongirl, samhaincat, TheCutie, Kimberly Ramone, malfoyie456, WolfGirl1618, Suuz112 and bluestriker666. I hope you all haven't forgotten about me and will keep the reviews coming. :)