Part 5

Blair rapped on the door of his motel room, glad for the first time about the quality of service in the place that she and Nate could just walk right on in without anyone flagging their presence. Blair pressed her ear to the door and heard only what sounded like the television set.

He wasn't even on an American channel.

Did this motel even have cable?

Blair pounded on the door once more. Then she sighed and sent Nate down to ask for assistance. He had only been gone a few minutes when the door swung open to reveal Chuck heavily leaning against the knob.

"I should've expected this," she muttered as he fell against her, reeking of liquor. Blair caught his weight in her arms and she stumbled towards the bed and dumped him. Blair leaned over him and slapped his cheek. "Chuck," she called. "Chuck, wake up. We need to talk about your asinine plan to stalk me by proxy," Blair hissed.

His head rolled to the side. Blair straightened in concern. Memories of Serena van der Woodsen's alcohol-induced frenzies returned to her. The door swung open and Nate stepped inside with the receptionist. Blair waved the girl away. "We'll take care of it," she said. To Nate, she asked, "Help me get him into the shower."

Nate moved quickly, and held up his best friend as Blair pushed Chuck's jacket off his shoulders. She unhooked Chuck's belt pulled it free.

"Oh yeah," Chuck moaned, his words dripping with sleaze. "You know you want me."

"Shut up, man!" Nate snapped. He slung Chuck's arm around his shoulders and stumbled into the bathroom. Blair assisted on Chuck's other side and helped Nate dislodge the barely conscious boy from him until Chuck leaned heavily against the tiles.

Blair twisted the knob, and warm water sprayed over them. She took the shower nozzle and turned it to Chuck, who spat and cursed at the onslaught of the water.

"Blair!" Chuck groaned in recognition.

Blair turned to Nate, then nodded towards the door. "You can go. Wait in the lobby. There's a tv that's always on." Blair placed the shower nozzle back.

Nate frowned. "And leave you alone with him? He's clearly gone insane."

Her lips thinned. "And you think he'd be any better seeing you here?" Chuck sank down the tiled wall to sit under the shower spray. "Go."

The blonde turned, then returned with the corded phone of the motel. He placed it on the floor right by the bathroom door. "Call the lobby if you need me."

Blair waited for the door to close, then turned back to Chuck. She stepped back a little at the sight of him staring at her as the shower pelted his body. "Is this how it's always going to be like, Blair?" The surprise was evident in her face, she knew. Chuck Bass could speak straight coming out of a drunken stupor. His eyes were still half-lidded, and she was willing to wager her fortune that his head was spinning.

She answered. "You tell me. I am always going to find you half-dead on the other side of the world?" She sighed, then picked up the tiny bottle of shower gel and walked towards him. Since he was in there anyway, it wouldn't hurt if he were a little more—Well, if he didn't stink of alcohol so much. Blair popped the cap and rubbed the slick liquid on his neck. Then she slid her hands under his wet shirt. People bathed babies, not boys who were old enough and experienced enough to be fathers.

"I meant," he whispered, leaning over her, his hair dripping water onto her clothes, "is Nate always going to show up when you think it's getting too hard?"

Blair pulled away and studied his cold eyes. "But you don't care, Chuck," she reminded him. He turned his gaze away. "Which is why I want to know why there's a man following me around saying he's working for you."

Chuck bared his teeth. "I'm gonna fire his ass." And that was all that he would say. Blair pursed her lips and unbuttoned his shirt, then continued washing him. "What the hell are you doing?" he hissed. "Isn't Nate going to be mad?"

She glared at him in frustration. "You know as well as I do that we're past the stage where you get jealous of Nate!" she snapped. "Stop pretending."

"He's always part of our lives," he muttered. "I hurt you and he comes running to rescue. That's not a coincidence."

"Then, Chuck," she communicated matter-of-factly, "stop hurting me."

"I can't," he choked out.

"Is it really that difficult?" she whispered. Sitting propped up by the tiles, on the floor of a suspicious motel, he watched her with keen eyes. Her voice was soft when she asked, "Aren't you tired yet? Don't you just want to come home?"

"I have no mother. My father's dead," he said. Chuck leaned back his head, and Blair's heart fragmented a little when he ended it with, "Home to what?"

He may not have answered her question, but she was and she did. Tired. Missing home. She was kneeling on tiles that should have disgusted her, still did, but she was kneeling anyway because he was here and this was where she could talk to him. She was tired of crying, and she wasn't going to show him any more tears. It made him meaner somehow, like he could see where she was weak and knew just where to hit. She reached for the shower knob and turned it back on in full blast.

And now, with both of them sodden, there was no way he could tell she was crying.

"I wish you could see that I'm part of your life now," she said softly. And she knew he could barely hear her words under the shower. Blair leaned closer to him. "I'm a part of your life," she repeated. "When you think of home, Chuck, consider me too."

"You don't understand what I'm feeling," he said brokenly, his face down to avoid the water.

Blair clutched at his bare shoulder, wordless, because he had not been willing to talk about it for so long. And now here, with his words drowned out by the running water, he would speak, and she would listen.

"None of you have lived your whole lives like I did, waiting for crumbs of his attention like an eager dog," he spat. Chuck raised his face to the shower, and she suspected he employed the same tactic she did when she knew she was about to cry. Hide your tears. "To the very last day I was a disappointment to him. And—" he said, turning to Blair with eyes red-rimmed and shadowed, "I fucking loved him. Didn't make one hell of a difference."

His voice trembled, and he turned his body to hers. Blair settled from kneeling to sit on the bathroom floor. She opened her arms to accommodate him as he pressed against her, laying his head against her breast. "Loved him all my life and nothing," he muttered against her skin.

Blair stroked his wet hair as he pressed against her, heavily, insistently, as if he wanted to sink, to vanish in her. She could not tell him she knew what that life was—her father and Cyrus loved her so easily, and her little triumphs had been celebrated since she was a child. But she knew—God, did she know—how he felt throughout it all.

"That's why I don't love you," came his soft words.

And for the first time, she felt no pain in the statement.

"I'm never going to love you," he continued.

Blair's eyes fluttered closed and she buried a kiss in his hair as she held onto him. "It's okay, Chuck." She had her own arsenal. She brought them with her everywhere she went, at the ready for whenever Chuck was around. Their move, from when Blair had been leaning over him as he sat under the shower, to the position they were in now, with Chuck pressing against her with his head on her breast, allowed them to slide away from the direct trajectory of the water. Their words now, even when said so softly, could be heard. They were the only two people in the world. "I'm still not going to stop. I'm always going to love you."

She had said it so many times she was afraid they would sound trite. But the way he tightened his hold on her, she knew to him, at least, it would never grow old.

Who cared that she never heard them back?

"Just don't hurt yourself anymore," she pleaded. "Do anything you want, but don't drink yourself to death. Take care of yourself," she urged him. "Because I love you."

And there was no greater weapon. He pressed his cold lips to her collarbone. Blair smiled sadly. No words, nothing but this. Chuck's lips were firm and seeking as he pushed up from his slack position against her. His torso was still wet and slick with the shower gel, and her hands slipped when she laid them on his back.

He took her lips with his in a sloppy kiss. "Please." Blair hesitated. No matter what happened in her life, she was still Blair Waldorf, and the bathroom floor in a cheap motel in soi 8 was never part of her movie. "Please," he repeated. "Those girls—never got there."

And whether she believed him or not was moot.

"Please, Blair," he said, his mouth pressed against the shell of her ear. "I need it. I need you."

That was enough. "Okay," she said soothingly. "Okay, Chuck, okay." She lay down on the tiled floor with the water falling directly over her stomach. Blair watched as he pulled off his pants and shucked his boxers, leaving the items sodden and clumped in the corner. He pressed his weight over her, and she could imagine the water now falling on the small of his back.

This time, unlike the last time in her bed, he took the time to pull off her panties. She glanced at the scrap of material as he threw it on top of his discarded clothes. Her legs parted to make room for him. Chuck pulled up the dress to settle it over her hips. "I need you," he repeated, as if asking for permission.

And she repeated, "Okay, Chuck."

He surged inside her, and she cried out, then grasped onto his slippery back. He lay still inside her, and Blair swallowed over and over, stretched at the fullness inside of her. Her heart beat violently as she waited for him to move. His breath was hot against her cheek, and it was brandy and whiskey and sickening alcohol she could not even recognize.

God, was this what her life would be like?, she wondered. He pulled out, then back in. Blair bit onto his shoulder at the excruciating pain and pleasure that intertwined with the movement.

She grew so cold she was close to trembling as she pressed back against the tiles. And he was so hot inside her even as his body on top of her was cold and clammy and slick. "Chuck," she released in one breath. "It hurts."

And then, she found herself gripped tightly to his chest as he maneuvered both of them so that he knelt away from the shower spray, and she was above him with her legs on either side of him. His hands settled on her waist, and he lifted her until she was mostly off of him, then helped her slam back down. "Better?" he rasped against her arm as he kissed to her shoulder blade.

Blair nodded, and raised herself up, then down, seeking release for herself. The last time he had reached his climax, and she was left wanting. In this mood, in this place, in this world, Chuck Bass would find his end and she had to think of herself too. He thrust up in her, and Blair frantically moved to find her own release.

She pushed closer and closer to it, until the coiled tension in her stomach broke and she exploded, hanging limply against Chuck as he jerked up inside her twice more. And then she felt the hot, sticky fluid shoot up from his body and into hers. The position caused his semen to drip out, to her inner thighs and flood him.

Long moments later, she felt him move her to his arms and realized that he was rising. And then, they were under the shower spray again. She sputtered and clung to him, because her knees were still weak and she would slip on the floor without help. Blair let out a choked cry of surprise when she felt his hand move between her legs.

And then she realized, as his slick hand ran down her inner thighs. He was washing her.

Blair laid her cheek against his chest, and she was grateful once again that the shower could hide them. But she knew he felt the hot tears against his skin.

This was not healthy. This was not her.

He lifted her up into his arms and settled her on the bed. And then, he climbed in beside her. She turned her back on him. He pressed up spooning behind her. She felt him, and like the teenage boy he was, only minutes after he spent himself, he was eager to go. His kiss was hot against her nape.

"Blair," he said softly, his hands settling on her hips.

This was not her, she thought, and still she felt herself pressing her buttocks against Chuck. He slipped inside her, and he laid one hand firmly over her stomach. Her hands reached behind her and pulled his ass tightly against her. They moved together gently, rubbing against each other, slowly, no frantic movement. It wasn't anymore as if they were driving to a finish.

And that was when Blair Waldorf broke.

In the morning, Chuck Bass would wake up alone.