Damn OTP, making me cry. Mea Culpa = 'my fault', excuse the pig Latin.
Enjoy.
Mea Culpa
'My outsides look cool
My insides are blue
Every time I think I'm through
It's because of you.'
– Unpretty, TLC.
The problem is that he's still connected:
Emotionally.
Physically, tied by a thread that doesn't break, no matter how hard he pulls.
His hands shake, and they always have. He should know better than to push against the lock, to use his hard won breaking and entering skills to force an issue rather than open a door to waiting arms. He lays his palm against the door, and he can hear her – or feel her, what's the difference – and all he wants is to tear it down. She radiates through the wood, cosmic rays, and there's another bullet stopping his breath.
The problem is that she can't grow out of it:
The fear.
The anxiety that the world is about to come tumbling down around her.
There are tears ruining her perfect face, but that hardly matters (because she's never been pretty, has she). She should still know better than to waste water on what can't be changed, to spend her time pushing toward or pulling away from the future and the past. She's curled in a corner, dress fanning out against the tiles – a masterpiece, unlike the mess she's made of herself – and all she wants is to believe.
"You didn't."
"I didn't," she affirms, watching her bare fingers.
"Good."
Her voice is hoarse. "Go away, Chuck. I can't deal with everything I say or do meaning something to you."
He ignores her, sits down beside her, doesn't touch. "I pity any girl who isn't you tonight."
She closes her eyes. "Didn't you hear me? I can't handle you."
"So I'm not me. Pretend I'm Nate, or Serena, or Humdrum Humphrey if it helps." He laughs, and she doesn't reciprocate. "So you're not you. So you're Audrey Hepburn, and I'm Cary Grant."
"I hate Charade."
"At least I know you're alive in there."
She looks up to the ceiling, still bent out of shape, still the walking wounded, still a broken doll. "Why is it always the same?" She whispers. "Every time and with every one, someone else has to decide if I'm worthy. The Colony Club, the Whitney Committee, la Table Élitaire, and now every Grimaldi in the Northern hemisphere. I thought..." He watches a tear descend, rolling down her cheek like the diamond that would make her his (in a once upon a time, happily ever after world he has no idea where to find). "I thought I would be enough this time."
"Roman Holiday," he says.
"What?"
"You're that Audrey."
"Explain."
He tugs on his lapel, almost catches her smile out of the corner of his eye. "You're a princess without Gregory Peck in there. You've always been a queen without anyone's help or loyalty. You don't need to validation to shine." So he hates himself a little, for loving her long after he should have given up. "They can't make you any less Blair Waldorf – and like I said, I pity any girl who isn't you tonight."
"Why?"
"Because it hurts to look at you."
She turns her face to catch his slipping profile, the black-gold eyes that hold her still even now, when her heart is as still as it ever could be. Her smile is small but true, and his head whips around to catch it. The moment is longer than it ought to be, because they're sitting on a bathroom floor and he's the boy she kissed once and she's the girl he used to see with other people. It's always hurt to look at him, but she's always done it; she's always been a masochist.
Pain is a fair trade off for the pleasure.
He touches her mouth.
Just two fingers.
The pain and the pleasure.
"If I swear never to tell anyone, and not to use it against you, and not to hold it over your head, and not to use it as grounds for your divorce for Gregory Peck in ten years time –"
She laughs.
"Yes," she says. "Yes, you can."
The consequence is that he kisses her, too gently to be the real him, too carefully for the real her. She moves slower than an unknown girl in a slip, sliding across leather cushions, but this time she reciprocates; she doesn't let anything just happen because she kisses him back, and her tears wet his face, and he lays his hands lightly on the tour de force that is her hair and doesn't let her get too close and spoil it. Their bodies can't touch, so their hearts won't touch. It still hurts, eyes closed, not looking, knowing that she's living another lie but that it keeps her living, holds her upright because he is life, life and love. He isn't quite sure what she is – perhaps the worst mistake of his life, or perhaps the best.
She dances through the royal court afterward, because she owns them.
He leans on the bar and reminds her silently that she always has.
Fin.