This piece's title comes from the Roman custom of holding a calendar to a flame and then deciding (by interpretation of the scorch marks) when a wedding should take place. I do like fluff.
Paper To Fire
Blair Waldorf was born in November, when the temperatures were arctic but it wasn't yet cold enough to snow. Chuck Bass was born in May, when the buds were blooming prettily outside the window as his mother lay dying.
She's the older woman – six months older, in fact – but he loves her just the same.
Blair Waldorf was born in November, when the frost was thick enough to build a wall around her heart. Chuck Bass were born in May, as the heat began to rise and sweat glistened on arms, legs, lips and sweetly curving hips.
She's all ice and he's all fire; what a pair for dark desire.
They laid her in a white draped crib and left her all alone. He was laid in the midwife's arms, and felt that last touch on his brow that meant she – the only she in his life so far – was gone. He was commandeered by nannies and cold hands and cold, hard cash.
Alone, she took comfort in things. Alone, he found solace in people.
They were thrown together throughout their lives – 'Blair, stand next to Charles' and 'the dark pair together, please'. It shows in the photographs: a smirking dark mirror to the golden goodness of the two opposite, dressed and pressed into happiness.
You are my affinity.
You are my salvation.
Thawing through, and tempered by love – who could've imagined what would come to pass? That ice and fire would meet, and gambit for the piece of themselves that they saw in the other? Who could've known – who would've dared to hope?
And then it becomes, 'Charles, darling' and 'Blair, dear', and even sometimes 'Mr and Mrs Bass' – always in that same corner together, always plotting, always scheming, always loving through skill and temptation and triumph. And that one picture Eleanor holds in her hands says it all: Nate and Serena, smiling for the camera, while Chuck and Blair are there, oblivious – a stolen moment gleaming in their eyes as her head is turned, as their lips are inevitably about to touch.
Paint me black, or white, or sepia – you're all I want.
Fin.