Blair heads back out into her party. She’s straightened her dress and rearranged her hair. She looks perfect and impeccable like always. Her beauty is stark and cold like a portrait of a high bred Victorian. Serena walks over and begins asking if she’s ok only she’s asking it in a strange way that seems to mean something else. Blair doesn’t want Serena’s sympathy. She doesn’t want anyone’s sympathy. She leaves her party twenty minutes later citing a headache and a full social calendar the next day. Truthfully she feels like she might have to cry again and wants to do so in privacy. Out on the street she pulls her shawl around her shoulders and waits for her car to pull up. People push by her on the sidewalks and the cold air bites into her exposed shoulders. She considers walking but that’s so plebian and common. Blair Waldorf is not common not even when her shoulders are shaking slightly and her hands keep fluttering to her face to spirit away tears. Blair Waldorf is stony and cold and perfect. Queens have to seem that way to keep their thrones. A black car glides up to the sidewalk and she lets out a sigh of relief. It’s getting harder and harder to repress this whole night. The necklace Chuck gave her seems to have sucked up all the cold air in the city and she raises a hand to adjust its icy pieces around her neck. The door swings open for her just as she’s about to get in and Blair takes a horrified step back.“Well. That’s gratitude for you.”Chuck Bass is now following her down the street easily catching up to her because it’s not easy to escape in three inch Manolos. “What part of ‘I never want to see you again’ was lost on you? Was it the never part?” Blair spins around for a confrontation when it’s obvious that escape is off the table for the night. Blair is usually so good at escaping ignoring and otherwise overlooking problems until they go away. The day after her parents signed the divorce papers she attended the Kiss on the Lips party and smiled at all the right people and laughed at all the right jokes. Blair is nothing if not able to ignore the rough edges of her life. “Maybe I missed that. Question was this request before or after you took your clothes off?” Blair realizes that this is what she wants. She wants to make Chuck mad. Have him retaliate and tell her what an awful person she is. She feels awful. She feels dirty and sad likes she’ll never be able to smooth the wrinkles out of her dress no matter how hard she tries. Her life was one continuous road into a future she knew and now she is on some back road leading to nowhere. She wants him to call her a whore. “I don’t know. Maybe it was after you begged me to give you the time of day. Really. Chuck how pathetic are you? Don’t you know that I just used you?” Blair is stony and cruel. She makes her words cut like a sword but Chuck seems unfazed.“You’re crying.” Just like that Blair realizes it’s true. She doesn’t even know how long she’s been crying but her hands come away wet and her lungs feel like they’re on fire. Chuck doesn’t say anything. He merely drapes his jacket over her shoulders and ushers her into his town car. Blair pulls the jacket tightly around her and balls herself up on the seat and doesn’t look at him. She realizes in that moment that they’ve had sex twice and this is the first time he’s seen her naked. For his part Chuck looks vaguely uncomfortable like he’s trapped between action and inaction. It makes sense though. Chuck is the reason that girls cry not the one comforting them. He leans forward and then pulls back and then sort of crushes himself into a corner of the seat and stares at her. Blair tries to ignore him entirely. He puts his hand on the seat and his pinkie brushes hers. She pulls her hand away. They pull up to Blair’s house and she stares out the window. She imagines her mother rushing to the door asking about her night. Eleanor would have probably bought a present and will want to know what Nate got her. The thought of her mother’s incessant questioning makes her chest feel tight again. But that’s Eleanor only there when you really don’t want her to be. “Maybe we can just go back to your place?”“Really?” Blair is horrified by the delight in Chuck’s voice. Butterflies. Chuck Bass has butterflies. Unbelievable. Blair feels like Serena in that moment. The way that Serena just sort of careens through life leaving havoc and wreckage in her path. One simple decision and she can hurt so many people. She imagines how much this will hurt Nate. She sees the expression on Chuck’s face. She wants it to be about revenge but it isn’t and for once she can’t fool herself. ***The chirping of her phone wakes her up in the morning. She’s sprawled out in a very undignified fashion and it takes her a moment to realize she’s not in her own bed. She tries to roll over to grab her phone but something is pinning her to the bed. Blair throws her arm out in an attempt to locate her ringing phone and wraps her fingers around it on the nightstand. Bringing it close to her face she reads the caller ID that says ‘Serena’ and flips it open.“Hey S. What are you doing calling so early in the morning,” Blair’s voice is groggy and she rubs the sleep out of her eyes.“Early? Blair it’s like 12 in the afternoon. Since when do you sleep in? Your mom called me this morning to say happy birthday and I had to tell her I hadn’t seen you since last night. Where are you exactly?” Serena sounds concerned but not as concerned as Blair is at that current moment as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place like an avalanche. The reason she couldn’t flip out of bed to get her cell is because Chuck Bass’ arm is sprawled across her stomach pining her to the mattress. His mattress. “What? Me? Where?” Blair’s statements are as incoherent as her thoughts. Then it snaps together once more. Blair is in Chuck’s suite at the Palace. The same hotel Serena lives in. The same room that Nate routinely calls his own. As a place to hide her dirty little secret…it’s not great. “Blair you’re not making any sense. Are you ok? Where are you?” Serena sounds more worried now and Blair imagines her only a floor away. She imagines the headline on gossipgirl net and shudders.“What no! I’m fine. I promise. My cell is cutting out though so I’ll have to talk to you later. Kisses!” Blair slams her phone shut and stares at the ceiling. She rolls her head and wonders that her entire conversation didn’t seem to budge Chuck one bit. She aims a kick at his thigh that causes him to jump up in alarm and look around. His hair looks like someone cut it with a lawnmower. “Morning Bass. Hate to cut this short but what’s the best way to get out of here without being discovered?” Blair is already moving around the room like a whirlwind picking up clothes and accessories and at times even tidying. “What’s the rush Waldorf? Come. Sit. Stay awhile. I’ll order up breakfast.” Chuck has rolled over toward the phone and without thinking Blair takes a running dive and is now pinning him to the bed.“Or we could do that.” “No! No room service. If anyone saw…no,” Blair is up and about again. “No one will ever ever know.” She looks sharply at Chuck. “EVER.”Chuck hasn’t moved much. He simply stays in bed smiling at her like a cat that has just eaten a particularly satisfying canary. “Ever,” Chuck lolls closer to the edge of the bed. “is a long long time.”Blair is standing in a slip holding her shoes in one hand and her dress in the other. She is acutely aware that she’s about to find out what the phrase ‘walk of shame’ means. Her stomach growls and Chuck laughs.“Here’s the plan B. I’ll get breakfast we’ll eat and I’ll get a car to pick you up at the service entrance,” Chuck throws on clothes as he speaks and finishes with his scarf. Blair considers choking him with it. “Fine.”Chuck comes back ten minutes later with breakfast for two. This is a first for him because he usually kicks out his conquests before breakfast. Now he’s standing in the doorway of his room like a servant with a bag held under his arm and a cocky smile dying on his lips. There’s no trace of Blair except for her necklace sitting on his bedside table. He throws out her breakfast and eats alone and convinces himself he likes it better this way. But for once he can’t fool himself. END
Related article:
http://community.livejournal.com/gossipgirlfic/6355.html
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
