A/N: whooooooa, I have not been around here in that long! I know this isn't the fic most people are looking to see updated, but it's the only one that just needed some polishing, and, you know, might as well start somewhere. Don't hold your breath, but Stockholm should be up by ... erm ... Sunday?
A/N II: anyone else just want to CHUNDER EVERYWHAAAAARE at this week's ep? Love The Way You Lie ... and Chair? I cried, I am not going to lie. And you have got to love Jenny, she's just such a skank
Just in case.
...
On Thanksgiving, it's tradition to give thanks, just as a family, for each other, for good health and fortune, good food and math grades. A time to reflect, to pause and cherish all the beautiful things one has; one day free from wishing for all the things one doesn't. Between the cooking and the eating and the football watching, religious or not, you say a quick prayer, to whomever or whatever, for Grandma, who died last March, and for Lucky, died the March before that, and for the Patriots, because the new coach is fucking imbecile, and for your sister Sarah, starting chemo tomorrow.
One in nine Americans, somewhere, is suffering from cancer. One in nine families is sitting down for this Thanksgiving meal, thinking, what do I have to be thankful for? A recession means lost jobs, lost cars, perhaps lost houses. Cancer means lost mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, friends, neighbours, colleagues, pets. Cancer means lost lives – lives, in the plural. When someone you love is buried, a little bit of everyone they knew, every heart they touched, is buried with them.
On Thanksgiving, please, be thankful. Just in case.
.
...
.
"And you're not dressed yet." He tries to keep his tone neutral; it is, after all, Thanksgiving – but he is annoyed. Annoyed, because, while he attempts mission impossible, at home there is Thanksgiving, a warm room full of joyous, thankful people – and food. Lots of food.
"Why am I not surprised?"
Chuck doesn't look up from the papers fanned out across his desk.
"Did you forget? Thanksgiving? Family dinner?"
"Not going," he mutters.
Dan sits down. Clears his throat. Fists open and close. A business proposal, perhaps, and Chuck's eyes roll to meet his. His expression reads: you have sixty seconds, start.
"You see, Chuck, family dinner means a dinner – with the family. The whole family. And, though this might come as a shock, you too are encompassed in that collective noun and such, attendance is mandatory. Not even cancer exempts you. Sorry, man." Dan stands up. It's a short speech but everything's been said before. "So get dressed. Or don't. Whatever. Just come. It would mean a lot, to everybody."
"You done?"
Dan drags a hand down his face and bottles up the sigh, the scream, the sudden urge to throttle him, right now, and just get it fucking over with. He thinks of Serena.
"I came here to escort you to dinner, not to argue."
"There would be no need for an argument if you accept the simple fact that I will not be attending this year's rendezvous and, kindly, leave."
He could ask about next year, but that's an ace Dan does not want to play.
"There'll be mashed potatoes ... "
Chuck sighs, covers up his face with his hands. "I'm not going."
Dan doesn't do touchy-feely, and not with Chuck – he is, after all, no matter what, still Chuck Bass – but this is Thanksgiving, and he can't help wondering, looking down at this person – lost inside a Man of Aran knitted fisherman sweater, one of those ridiculous Russian furry flappy hat things, gloves and more gloves – is there enough left?
"Please. I'm telling you now, I'm not leaving here without you – plaid pyjamas or no plaid pyjamas – and you would not deprive me of turkey. Would you?"
"I can't."
"Can't what, Chuck?" Dan asks.
And here's where it all comes out.
"At Thanksgiving you're supposed to be thankful, yes? Go round the table and everyone throws in their two cents, I'm thankful everyone's here to share this meal, I'm thankful everyone's healthy, blah blah blah. I can't sit there, knowing everyone is thinking, thank fucking God I'm not him. Thank God I don't have cancer. Thank God I'm not dying."
"You're not dying," he says, quiet and strong. "You're coming to dinner. Now get dressed."
.
...
.
For once, just once, everything is perfect, and the mashed potatoes are sublime. Thick and creamy and buttery. Serena feeds Delilah off her spoon when Dan isn't looking. Blair dollops them out, so fast Nate has to come scurrying up the table, the anti-extinction squad. "What?" she demands. "What? They don't do Thanksgiving in Paris."
"Can you pass me the potatoes, Chuck?" Jenny chirps.
His hands shake a little at the heavy bowl, but the golden warmth seeps through the china, and through the latex, and he can almost taste it flowing in his veins. He doesn't trust them, not for eating, but breathes in deep as they pass.
Lily raising an inquiry eyebrow – there's alarm there, though well hidden. "Chuck? Are you all right?"
He smiles, sets down the potatoes.
"Yes. Yes, I'm fine."
And it's the golden truth.
(Take a picture. It lasts longer)
Jenny sneezes. There's some diplomatic restructuring of places, bumshuffle up and down the table ("No, it's just that I – er – really want to with Dan. Yes.") and then Blair and her mashed potatoes plonk down beside him.
She smells like butter and Parisian rain and sepia pictures. He breathes in, lets all those smells wrap around him, and he doesn't want to vomit.
"Chuck?" Blair's watching him, hawklike. "Chuck, are you okay?"
"Fine," he answers breezily.
She smiles coyly. "Bon."
She's too beautiful.
(Take a picture)
Jenny excuses herself. Nate rises, frowning, goes after her. "It's probably just a bug. I've been feeling really tired. No, seriously, Lily. I'm fine, I'm totally fine. We're just going to go home. I need to lie down." Nate has wrapped his sweater around her willowy shoulders. "I feel much better now, anyway. Seriously. Don't worry."
Chuck stands up.
They're not leaving because Jenny's overtired. They're leaving because she vomited (he can tell, the way she swallows) and, they're all sitting here, breathing the same oxygen. They're leaving for him.
"No," he says. "Stay."
There's much humming and hahing, but he claims tiredness – they need only look at him – and at least he's granted parole. Takes the elevator down to the lobby, curling his hands tight around the rails, but it's no use. Something sinks inside him, the smell of butter is gone, replaced by sour metallic spit. He waves Arthur away. He'll have to walk; it will take the better part of an hour (only fifteen blocks, and the first snow has long since melted), but he will have to walk. Motion sickness is like a sunset. Irreversible, until dawn.
"CHUCK!"
He turns, so very slowly, and Blair has already come running through the revolving doors (the sight of them, all that movement, he swallows hard). Her scarf waves out behind her like a white flag. "Chuck." Stops beside him. Frowns. "Are you ... walking?"
He keeps his mouth closed.
"Actually, a walk sounds fantastic. I ate a lot of potato." She smiles up at him, offers her arm. "Shall we?"
.
...
.
They walk apart, together on the same pavement. Its emptiness only exacerbates the hole between them and Blair, for the first time, wishes it were any other day. A digital clock hanging outside a drug store reads 6:42. Only five hours left, and she hasn't had pie yet.
The silent city acts as a microphone for the lone busker standing on the corner of 79th and Madison. Being Thanksgiving, nobody had the heart to evict the poor soul. He's young, wearing winter woollies, and strumming away at a battered old guitar. There's a red light and they come to a halt. Blair fishes in her purse for change. There's a slight wind, whispering in from the Hudson, and she hands him the crisp twenty – just in case.
He squirrels it away inside, keeps on playing, a private concert just for them.
"Momma take this badge off of me. I can't use it anymore."
Chuck has his hands in his pockets.
"It's getting dark, too dark to see."
The lights have just come on, they have that pinkish glow, an athlete in the blocks. Night is there on the horizon, rolling in off the ocean.
"Feel like I'm knocking on Heaven's door."
Chuck's hands are shaking inside his pockets.
"Knock, knock, knocking on Heaven's door. Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door."
The light turns green. Blair lays a hand on his arm. "Come on. The light's green." Together, they walk across the road. The busker serenades them all down the street, his voice echoing off shop windows full of expensive shoes and no people.
"Momma put my guns in the ground. I can't shoot them anymore. That long, black cloud is coming down."
Down the opposite path, there's a little girl in a bright red coat skipping at her father's side. They're holding hands.
They both reach at the same time.
"I feel like I'm knocking on Heaven's door."
Blair watches the pair turn into Central Park. She looks up at him. "Do you, by any chance, have cinnamon?"
Chuck blinks. "Why?"
"I can't make Daddy's pie without cinnamon!" she exclaims, aghast. "Come on, come on! We have – precisely five hours – to find all the ingredients, bake a pie and eat it."
"There's a Starbucks that's always open, just on the next street." He's trying so hard right now, and she squeezes his hand (only a little, just in case) in acknowledgment. "We could steal their cinnamon shaker?"
.
...
.
Blair says, "It's hard to explain. You know, what they say, that you only truly realise what something's worth once it's gone. When I saw you, that night, when I came back ..."
Outside the kitchen window the sky is an unbroken black, and the clock on the oven blinks 00:42, but they're not bothered with things as menial as night and day, or time.
"Paris ..." She tries again. "Paris was ..."
I lived, without you, but with you, all the same. There wasn't a day when I didn't think of you – the amount of times I almost drunk-dialled you. I never deleted your number. I've a whole drawer full of postcards I wrote to you. Some of them even have stamps ... I don't know. Just in case, I guess. You're part of me, like it or not. There's nothing I can do about it, and, believe me, I've tried. And if you died, then that part of me would die too. Me choosing to live without you, so to speak, is different. It's completely different. And I don't choose that anymore. I haven't, for a long time. But, what you said to me, at the airport, when I left – that I was wrong, and that I'd come crawling back – it kept me away. I was just too proud – too much of a coward. I had to be right. But now ... Please. I'm crawling, Chuck, I'm on my hands and knees. Just like you said. You were right."
Say something, Chuck. Oh, God, say something."
He takes a breath. "I love you. I've always loved you. I will always love you."
"That's not enough, though, is it?"
The clock now reads 00:45. The little green numbers tick on, 00:47.
Blair crawls into his arms, they sit, kitchen floor, backs against the sink as the candles splutter and die and the pumpkin pie goes cold and crusty on the plates. It won't be eaten now. He rests his head against hers. He's as sorry as she is.