Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.
Thank you for reading.
--Sarah
Unofficial.
It's been four weeks when Carter Baizen begins to wonder if perhaps he and Blair Waldorf are a couple, just without having the official couple talk to, well, officiate the whole thing.
If there is such a thing as an official couple talk, really, because, hell, he's never been half of a couple, so like he'd know.
But it does feel like it, when he's lying on his belly on her bed, diligently pretending to read up on investments and tuning out the crappy reality tv she's taken to watching of late, leaving her extensive collection of romantic classics and fairytales dormant on a shelf for the time being.
She absently reaches down beside her to rub his back, finding bare skin where his t-shirt has hitched up and so slipping her hand beneath the material to run her fingers from his waist up and over his shoulders, again and again in a circular motion, until he thinks he might die it's so amazing.
He steals a glance up at her and she's still trained on the television, either oblivious to the heaven the rhythm of her hand is making for him or just well enough aware that she doesn't need to look.
His eyes grow heavy after a while and he closes his book and shifts to rest his head in her lap. She doesn't miss a beat, running her hand once more along the side of his rib cage and then smoothing his t-shirt back down before dropping her hand gently to tangle it in his hair.
As he falls asleep, he thinks for sure this moment is quite couple-y of them, what with the lack of sex and utter sense of comfort, and, oddly, he thinks it might be something he could get on board with.
XOXO
Blair takes to wearing red lip gloss again, the shiniest and brightest she owns, more cherry than ruby, but continues to forgo headbands and begins favoring only black patterned stockings. Iz, Penelope and Hazel are briefly perplexed but recover admirably and send Nelly Yuki on an emergency Wolford errand and toss their satin bows and glittering jeweled beads into their lockers.
Blair manages a smile that crosses condescension with the vaguest hint of genuine gratitude when Jenny Humphrey compliments her on the new look.
She's less gracious when Chuck Bass smarms by moments later and points out that her new style is accentuated by a certain glow.
"It's one very recognizable to me," he confides, smirking between the two girls and hoping for all the world that the insane panicked thudding of his heart isn't audible to anyone else.
Blair hisses something exasperated and unintelligible, but also, as neither Chuck nor Jenny fails to pick up on, nowhere near her usual standard of biting iciness.
She stalks away before she can catch the vaguely desperate look in Chuck's rich chestnut eyes.
XOXO
Serena is more polite.
After countless failed attempts at getting Blair to let her in on what's got her so aloof yet cheerful, so unaffected by all the forces that used to rule her existence, over lunch at the Palace one Saturday she finally turns the subject to Carter herself, with a glint in her eye and that blinding Serena smile.
She's shaken when Blair's forkful of baby spinach freezes halfway to her mouth.
"B? I … sorry, I thought you'd want to talk about him?" she asks, bewildered.
Blair recovers in an instant, dropping the fork back to her plate with a shrug and beckoning their waiter for another bottle of wine.
"Sure, but what's to talk about?" she asks easily. "You know all there is to know. Carter. Hot. Rich. Appropriate. Carrying around far less baggage than I'm used to having to deal with. I'm having a great time."
She's not sure why all of a sudden the idea of considering aloud any actual feelings on the subject of the boy has got her ready to vomit raspberry vinaigrette, or why a wave of guilt hits her like a ton of bricks when she hints out loud at the fact that if you consider Carter in the simplest of ways, he might be cherry picking the best of Chuck and Nate, and she smiles in a way that feels maniacal and pushes her plate away.
Serena nods slowly. "That's great, B. I just thought …"
"You thought what?"
Serena thinks she just thought that maybe she'd seen a softness in Carter's eyes and heard something deeper beneath Blair's carefree giggling of late.
"I just thought … maybe it was more than just a great time?" She offers cautiously.
Blair takes a sip of Sauvignon Blanc and regards her evenly, contemplating, and then asks after her new Balenciaga.
"I feel like it'd be difficult to coordinate," she declares, and her tone lets Serena know the subject has officially been changed.
XOXO
Surprisingly, it's Nate who finds it hardest to let the subject drop, or at least forcibly make it become invisible.
Unsurprisingly, he still has no fucking clue how to have a real conversation with the girl who loved him for more than a decade, and so he makes the rounds unsuccessfully until he finds himself in Chuck's suite, his best friend regarding him with an expression that's mostly eyebrows and a half smile, conveying amusement and something else that Nate can't pinpoint because he's had this obnoxious headache for weeks now and it's interfering with his perception skills.
"Are you sleeping with Blair again?" he demands without formalities, and Chuck laughs outright, stretching leonine and getting up to make his way to the bar.
"Now, now, Nathaniel," he replies, taking his time with the bottle of Scotch. "Where would you get such an idea?"
Nate drops his head back along the couch cushions and regards the ceiling for time enough that Chuck has crossed the room and stands before him offering a rocks glass when he meets his eyes.
"I don't know," he offers. "Lighter, happier, less Blair?"
Chuck's smile could pass for a grimace as he recognizes the description, and he honestly murmurs, "wish I could take the credit this time" before he can catch himself. When he looks up, Nate's gaze is hard, navy steel.
"I wish you could too, honestly," he replies. "You know she's seeing Carter."
"Baizen." It's not a question, as Chuck nods in his mutual disgust. Gossip Girl has caught the two of them together time enough over the past month, and though the photos have been blurred and the confirmation spotty, it's apparent in their smiles and linked hands that it's more than a one-time thing.
"You know, you really fucked up," Nate points out carelessly, and Chuck stares at him with a mixture of incredulousness, amusement and … is that pain? … and Nate continues with a more meek, "I just mean … if you had known what you had …"
"I've been a little preoccupied," Chuck snaps obviously and pointedly when Nate trails off. "And I'll refrain, Nathaniel, from pointing out exactly how much could have been avoided had you just know what you had for, oh, more than half your life."
They glower, sipping in silence, for several minutes, and Nate finally offers an apology that Chuck immediately brushes aside.
"So … is that it then?" Nate asks, and there's a vulnerability, something like fear, evident when Chuck looks at him. "We just let her go?"
"Maybe," Chuck muses, "she's better off?"
"With Carter?" Nate spits, and they lock eyes.
Chuck shrugs as if dismissively, but something rages inside of him, and he sees it reflected in a feverish flush across Nate's cheekbones.
XOXO
"You want to go sailing?" Carter asks out of nowhere, late-ish on a Thursday night, and Blair shifts in the darkness to seek out the tell-tale sheen of his eyes.
"Sailing?" she repeats, vaguely dumbstruck. "It's the end of March."
"Mmm-hmm," Carter confirms, his lips finding her neck and grazing gently. "Frostbiting," he says. "My dad loves it. He just had his J-24 refinished and is dying to ruin the paint job in Nantucket Sound."
She's quiet for a moment, considering how sailing for her up until this point has meant perching delicately on the bow of something 32 feet or longer in her bikini while Nate slugged Coronas and glided the boat easily through minimal waves in Southampton in August. Frostbiting, March and Nantucket Sound all ring threateningly foreign in her ears, but then Carter's hand finds the waistband of the threadbare flannel pants she's taken to sleeping in during this final half of winter and she wonders, as he traces random patterns on her skin, what's so great about the familiar anyway.
"Okay," she says, and his fingers freeze, splayed out over her stomach, and she can feel him smile against her cheek.
"Okay?" he repeats, and she turns her lips to his.
"Yes. I could go … frostbiting."
"This means you'll be meeting my parents," he tells her quietly, after a few minutes of the careful, savory kissing she's yet to tell him he's exceptionally proficient at, and she pulls her head back.
"I already know your parents," she informs him with a less than subtle hint of obviousness in her voice, and he draws her back to him with a hand tangled in her curls.
"I know," he replies. "But you'll be meeting them as like … you know …"
"Your friend?" she offers after a beat, well aware that it's not what he meant but also desperate to convince him that it was, all the while not knowing why.
He's quiet for a long moment before offering affirmation to her statement, and she feels a chill as he turns over. She pushes the vague nagging from her mind when he doesn't flinch as she slips an arm around his waist, and she pulls herself flush against his back and lies in silence until his breathing becomes steady and lulls her to sleep.