Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.

Slightly different style on this one. More dialogue, fewer time breaks.

Thank you for reading. –Sarah

Asshole.

Carter smiles to himself when he hears the ding of the elevator followed by the unmistakable sound of three-inch heels clacking purposefully across the floor.

"Hi honey, how was your day?" he greets her teasingly, eyes trained on the page in front of him. Blair remains silent, and he glances up to note she's angry – she's violently shaking rain droplets from her glossy curls and her cheeks are flaming. She meets his eyes and he thinks if he didn't know her she'd have just frozen his blood in his veins.

"Uh-oh," he sighs, setting down his book. "What's wrong? The rain ruin your Manolos?"

She scowls briefly, intensely, and then closes her eyes for a moment as if to give herself pause to let that one go, and then she fairly spits: "What's this about you setting Nate up at a poker game?"

He gapes at her incredulously, and knows the second they leave his lips that the words "What, did Pretty Princess Archibald cry to you about that?!" were perhaps not the best opening lines of defense.

"No," she retorts, dropping her red patent Marc Jacobs purse, flustered, and then picking it up again. "Not that it matters, but I heard it from Vanessa, who heard it from Serena, who heard it from Chuck …"

"Seriously?"

"Seriously what?"

"Who the hell is Vanessa? And could you sound anymore like you're in high school right now?"

"She's – why does it even matter who she is? She's no one. I don't even normally speak to her, but today I accidentally did, and what do I hear? That I'm sleeping with an asshole. AND I AM IN HIGH SCHOOL!"

His eyes blaze to match hers at this point. "Well isn't sleeping with assholes your specialty? Why so high and mighty this time?"

"How dare you?" she sputters. "Don't make this about me. Why did you do it?"

"Blair, it was more than a year ago …"

"WHY?!"

"I NEEDED THE MONEY!"

She laughs. "Oh yeah, that's rich, Carter."

"It's true!"

"You're Carter Baizen."

"Off-the-map, remember? Disowned my parents, disowned by my parents?"

"Oh come on," she snorts. "Stop talking to me like I'm stupid. Everyone knows the only unglamorous bit about being a trustafarian is the personal choice not to shower in the five-star hotels you shack up in while 'finding yourself' in every exotic locale on the map."

"It was only the interest off my trust," he offers weakly. "I don't come into it in full until I'm 25…"

She shakes her head vehemently, disgusted, and when she speaks again her voice is soft, disappointed, and he hates what it does to his insides. "How could you? Nate looked up to you. He was your friend."

He looks away at this, clenching his jaw, and when he speaks again his tone is quiet to match hers. "Look, I know. I felt – I feel bad about it. I tried to apologize, but he wasn't hearing it…"

"Why would he?" she laughs. "God. Whatever, Carter. It's a good thing he had Chuck," she murmurs, almost as an afterthought to herself, but he catches it.

"Right, Bass, what a goddamn hero," he retorts, voice laced with sarcasm, and she rolls her eyes.

"Well, compared to present company?" she offers with a patronizing smirk, eyebrows raised. "From what I hear you didn't complain when he covered your ass too, letting you pay off those guys with his Piaget, which you stole from him after showing up at a party he didn't even invite you to!"

"It was the Lost Weekend! IT'S MY PARTY! I INVENTED IT!" He explodes, and her demeanor remains sickeningly sweet and calm, to his dismay.

"Now who's acting like he's in high school?" she prompts, her perfect pouty lips curving up into a triumphant smirk.

"Maybe you should be with someone more upstanding and grown up, then, like Chuck Bass," he growls, and her smile falls, eyes hardening.

"Maybe I should just go," she replies, and she sets her jaw and catches her breath for a moment as he crosses the distance between them to stand directly before her, close enough that she can feel his breath on her face when he looks down to meet her eyes.

"I'll get the elevator for you."

XOXO

He's not sure how much time has passed when he hears the elevator again, and the clacking, slower, almost hesitant this time, he just knows that it's dark outside his window now and he lost all interest in his book and has been lying on his bed forcing things he doesn't want to think about from his mind ever since she left.

She stands before him now, her hair pulled back, and he regards her silently. She opens her mouth twice and takes a half step forward before retreating, and then finally appears to decide to just go for it, and not only crosses to the side of the bed where he's lounging, but climbs on and settles herself in her usual nook against his left side.

He wraps his arm around her without hesitation.

"I outed Serena for a drug problem last year," she confides in one breath. "In front of every single Ivy rep, the top 3 percent of Constance and St. Judes, and every adult in our social circle."

He chuckles, and quietly tells her he'd heard about that one.

"And she's my best friend," she adds, and he nods. "I'm sorry I called you an asshole."

He looks at her, finally, and gives her a little smile. "I kind of am one, though?"

She laughs and rests her head against his shoulder. "I didn't even really apologize to S for that," she admits.

"Hm," he considers this. "I guess you might be kind of an asshole too."

Her laughter rings out louder and the iciness that's been sitting in his stomach since they fought starts to thaw a little.

"I've been worried lately," she says softly, and he looks at her questioningly. "Worried about how we're growing apart – me, S, Nate … Chuck. Sometimes I feel like we're looking at each other like we're just … people we once knew, that we don't even understand anymore."

"Growing up," he offers. "It happens kind of fast, and … intensely, in our circles."

She looks at him with those wide, dark eyes, her face so pleading and doll-like. "How do I make it stop? The growing apart part of … growing up?"

He shakes his head apologetically and makes a face that's at once rueful and self-deprecating. "Sorry, I can't really help you there," he admits with a humorless little laugh. "I kind of got to avoid that part by, you know … not having friends."

Her face falls so sadly for him, and he can feel the pity practically roll off of her and he instantly regrets his words and tries uselessly to reclaim them. "No, Blair, forget – I wasn't trying – I didn't mean … it's no big deal. I had – have – had … friends. People, around, anyway. Just not like what you're talking about …" her eyes still appear to be verging on brimming for his plight, and so he offers a weak, "It's always been better that way, for me. For the way I … live."

She shakes her head, and then rests it back against his shoulder. "I don't think that's true."

He drops his head briefly back against his pillows, staring up at the ceiling, and then turns so that his chin sits atop her hair. "You might be right."

She sits up then, suddenly serious, and looks him in the eye. "I don't think you're too much of an asshole to have friends," she announces.

He thinks it's at once the most ridiculous and the nicest thing anyone's ever said to him, and he's not sure if he should laugh, cry or kiss her, so instead he just says, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she tells him, crawling forward and wrapping her arms around his neck. He pulls her onto his lap and just holds her there for a minute.

"Serena had a drug problem?" He wonders, finally, and she freezes against him.

"No," she sighs after a beat. "I made it up."

He laughs. "Asshole."

"Right back at ya, friend."