Gossip Girl // prince obnoxious and the bitch (Blair, Chuck/Blair, mature)
prince obnoxious and the bitch
Gossip Girl. Blair, Blair/Chuck, Serena, Dan, implied Nate/Jenny. Mature, 6,700 words. Spoilers for everything that's aired until now.
Thanks to thecullenforce for the read-through!
Notes: I never write about canon couples, or couples that have a strong possibility of becoming canon, and I find it really difficult to write when the next episode is going to turn my story into an alternate reality. I've let myself loose with this, though, and I've had fun, hence the general structural instability. Sorry about that, by the way. Anyhow, if you read this, I would love some feedback, anything, you don't even have to put any effort into it. It's just there are some things here I've never tried before and I'd love to know how they work.
*
It is a truth universally acknowledged -or at least acknowledged at this time and in the Upper East Side of Manhattan- that every woman lacking a satisfactory social life -and isn't that everyone, nowadays?- wants to be Serena van der Woodsen.
Teenage girls want her looks and her status, middle-aged women reminisce their old days by living vicariously through her adventures -or at least the ones that Gossip Girl retells-, and a couple of guys here and there would like to live in her body, although for possibly dirtier purposes - not that anyone else's are particularly noble.
Blair? She's spent longer than every one of these women together wanting to be Serena van der Woodsen. She wants her blond hair and her style and her fame. Because Blair is sassy, and witty, but she needs an impressive outfit and a Serenaless situation to be heard, while Serena can just wear a pair of boring jeans and twirl her hair with a small amount of purpose in the middle of Central Park and even the people who don't know her -like the tourists with limited time who should be touring instead- will stare and sigh and sometimes even take a picture.
That's what Blair wants.
Definitely.
Then Serena goes away, and then she comes back and gets a boyfriend, and her theories kind of go straight to hell.
*
Serena's boyfriend isn't in the circle, and he's not rich and he definitely doesn't have an eye for style, but she pulls it off because she's, well, Serena van der Woodsen, and everyone is too busy admiring her to even consider for a second that she may be doing something wrong.
If Dan Humphrey was a cellphone, he would be sold out in about four hours from the moment Serena's photographed with him. That's Blair's theory. Serena's a Paris Hilton waiting to happen, only with a more natural smile and a warmer heart and less botox and more talent and - well, the comparison probably stops at the celebrity status and general self-centeredness part, but still. If she tattooed her face, everyone would follow suit.
And Blair used to be okay with that, until she got a taste of it. Of not just being in, but being the 'in' itself. Of setting trends and being noticed, for better or for worse.
You know, it's not so much that she wants Serena's life, at least after Serena's mother gets engaged to Bart Bass and she discovers that her brother is in a mental institution -it's certainly not the most desirable situation a person could find herself in-, but she wants the way Serena walks through it like a breeze and comes out looking even better, because that's everything - that's the appeal and the beauty and the happiness.
But Blair's not indifferent, and she appreciates that in a way, in the sense that she is much more self-aware than Serena's ever been - that is, until Chuck happens, just like the natural catastrophe he always had the potential to be, and it's not such a good trait at all.
*
"Why is it that you can sleep with two guys in one week and people worship you, and I sleep with two guys in my whole life and I'm a slut?"
Serena looks up from her computer.
"Hello to you too," she says with a smile, shutting down the laptop, and Blair takes it as an invitation to close the door behind her and sit on Serena's bed.
"I mean," Blair continues, "I wasn't even cheating, and most people think I've been sleeping with Nate since we got together, anyway. You caught syphilis at fifteen and no one gave you any crap about it."
This is the sort of thing that she wouldn't say out loud, but Serena's asked her to be honest with her, and Serena's the only friend she has in Manhattan, so she's giving boldness a chance.
"You're amazing," Serena says, looking intently at her, and chuckles.
"What?" Blair asks, honestly confused.
"I was a room service call away from being sent to boarding school by my mom, and Isabel didn't touch me for three months. I think she was afraid she'd get infected through my jacket." Serena chuckles at that.
Blair frowns. "Seriously?"
Serena shrugs and smiles sourly. "Yep. And you know why people didn't call me a slut? Because I didn't answer. I didn't have time to play along, I was too busy feeding the gossip mill. What's the point of insulting someone if you're not gonna get a reaction?"
And okay, maybe Serena's right, and Blair can really get through school and her friends back and - well, it's probably better not to think about Nate right now -, but Blair doesn't have that confidence, and she doesn't have that many things to keep herself occupied - not of the kind that doesn't require her to face people, anyhow.
"You're gonna have a heart attack if you keep worrying so much," Serena says. "Come on."
And she takes Blair shopping, because there's no better way to heal than that.
*
The thing with Serena's boyfriend not being a part of their usual social circle is that Blair feels observed every time he's around. She has good reason, because he looks at her a lot, like he's trying to figure out what to make of her and whether she's safe or not for Serena. And it's not that she blames him for that, considering everything she's done in the past, and that he's one of the two people who are giving her a chance, even if Dan is more there for Serena than he is for Blair, but you can't expect a girl to feel like anything other than the third wheel around a relatively new couple that she hasn't helped form. Before Serena fled to boarding school, there was Blair and Nate, and Serena and whoever she was planning to have sex with that night, and it was easy that way, because it was usual and it was them, but this is just plain weird.
She doesn't go out with them, but she stays in with them, and they watch a movie or play videogames, which is possibly the only thing in the world that Blair's truly awful at and doesn't mind, and then Blair takes a cab home, or Dan drives Serena and probably has sex with her in the car or in her hotel room or whatever, considering how hard it seems to be for him to keep his hands off of her in Blair's company. If he's the same around everyone, Blair can see why Vanessa doesn't hang out with them all that often.
On the positive side, though, it's actually rather entertaining to see Dan study her face every time he says something to her, because he has no idea how she's going to react, and it's not that she likes Dan or anything, not that way, but she's never had a lot of people look at her eyes instead of at her clothes or her hair or her - or Nate, and it feels nice to hold that kind of interest for a change.
She understands Serena a bit better now.
*
Of course, understanding her doesn't really change how annoying it is when Serena talks on the phone while Dan is kissing her, because she giggles intermittently and keeps muttering things to him, and that doesn't do any good for Blair's second-best complex.
"Hey," Serena finally manages to get out, and Blair says hello. "Dan and I were gonna go downtown to see this band play-" She giggles again, and Blair can hear a soft Stop, stop at the other end of the line. "Anyway, I don't remember the name, but they're supposed to be pretty good, and Vanessa knows the club owner and is getting us in, so you won't be alone with just me and Dan. You wanna come?"
Blair hears what she figures is a full kiss on the lips then, and she grimaces.
"Nah," she says, "I feel like I'm incubating a cold right now, it's probably better if I stay home tonight."
"Okay then," Serena says. "Do you want me to bring you anything?"
"No, don't worry, I'm fine, just a bit of a sore throat. I'll just see you tomorrow. Right?"
There's a pause before Serena answers, probably a result of her wondering how big a lie Blair is telling, but then she says, "Sure. Get better," and hangs up.
She's not sick, she hasn't been really sick in a long time, but the prospect of talking to Vanessa just makes her want to throw up. Not because she hates the girl, although she doesn't trust her very much, but because Vanessa will probably ask how it feels to be an outcast now, and then she will ask how it feels to have your heart broken, and Blair will say that that question can fly both ways, and Blair and a Vanessa type of girl? Only work in short, enmity-themed scenes, and this doesn't look to be one.
*
The second time it's easy enough to pretend that she's not into the band, since neither she or Serena have ever heard about it, and the third time she can just say she promised her mother to attend a party with her, but the fourth time, the call comes in so unexpectedly and so from Dan instead of Serena that the first excuse she comes up with is catching up with homework.
Dan doesn't argue with her, and considering that it's Dan he probably believes her, but she really needs to work on her excuse book.
Her mother is at some art event or another, and flipping through the two hundred decent channels her television catches makes her too sleepy to keep herself awake for too long after nine, so she goes to the kitchen, downs half a small glass of Scotch in one swallow and sighs. By the third repetition of the process, she's already feeling a little more interested in life, and by the time she's done getting dressed to be seen, with all the trips to the kitchen that includes, she's actually feeling both horny and dumb enough to call Chuck and say something that resounds in her head like an irrationally pissed off "Hey, do you do booty calls?" for minutes afterwards, and when she hangs up she's not even sure if he's said yes, and she's not even sure the ground hasn't swallowed her in advance for the utter guilt and embarrassment and just plain idiocy that she's pretty sure she's going to feel tomorrow morning.
The bell rings ten minutes later, though, so she figures he has somehow changed his mind since the last time she tried to get him to - oh. Different requests, she supposes.
What an asshole, she thinks boredly, but she lets him in, pulls him in by the stupid brown scarf he's chosen to wear tonight, and closes the door behind him.
*
"Eager, aren't we?" Chuck says with a smirk, following the noise of the knob clicking shut with that annoying tone of his, and Blair suddenly feels much more awake, or at least the need to be much more awake, because this is Chuck and God knows what Chuck could do if she didn't have the capacity to put up any resistance. She rolls her eyes and looks at him with a hand on her hip and what she hopes is a clearly irritated face.
"Oh, just shut up and kiss," she says, and he crosses the step between them, takes her arm and does. Kiss her, that is. Why it takes her by surprise must be some sort of consequence of the alcohol running through her insides, because it's not like they haven't done this before, and it's not like she doesn't know how Chuck kisses when he wants to appear in charge, all force and determination. He traces her lips with his tongue, slow and sure, and she opens her mouth for him just like she knows he expects of her. He pulls apart then, though, observing her and her half-closed eyes and the way she moves her mouth forward to try and capture his lips again.
"Did you just paraphrase Hilary Duff?" he asks, more composed than he should be by now, and it probably doesn't say anything good about her that Shut up and fuck me actually crosses her head, but at least she has enough self-control left to restrain from saying it out loud.
"Shut the fuck up, Bass," she commands instead, mix and match, grabbing both ends of his scarf and guiding him up to her bedroom. She walks backwards in high heels, sheer provocation, staring into his face to see how the desire boils and shows through his lustful eyes, his hands barely an inch from Blair's, his mouth half-open and his tongue intermittently wetting his lips.
She takes longer than necessary to get to her room, but he's not the only one who can be a tease, and she knows Chuck likes that, likes to be controlled by a woman more than he likes manhandling them, likes to have a heeled foot against his thigh threatening to throw him down the stairs, the certain fear that maybe it will go farther than a game. They get there eventually, though, soon enough, and Blair pushes him inside, kicking the door shut behind herself and loosening her grip at the scarf, sliding it off his neck and onto the floor, and replacing it with her hands on his chest, his shoulders.
He walks closer to her, pins her against the door, and kisses her for real this time, exploring her mouth with his tongue like he's forgotten the map. He tastes like peppermint gum and something that she can't quite pinpoint - rum, maybe; lemon -, and his hands rest perfectly on her hips, stroking slowly and almost, his fingertips brushing against the curve of her ass and the hollow of her hips over her skirt in rhythm with the way she moves her body back and forward in waves.
He leaves her mouth and her hips for a moment, only to take off his jacket and throw it on a chair nearby, and she pulls his cashmere sweater over his head and starts unbuttoning his shirt as he leaves a trail of warm kisses from her lips to her neck, licking at the corner of her mouth and the line of her jaw and random places here and there, making her shiver at the closeness, at his breath grazing her skin and his teeth nibbling at her collarbone, his hands pushing her t-shirt up and unzipping her skirt.
The contrast of his fingers and the soft fabric of her clothes makes her squirm against him, makes her breathing harder, louder, erratic. The streetlamps filter their light through her window, and Blair can see Chuck's smirk when she opens her eyes to take off his shirt, the contact of his hands disappearing and flying back to her skin in a matter of seconds. He looks intently into her eyes as he pushes a thigh between her legs and slides his knee up the polished wood, and Blair's head falls back against the door, exposing her neck for Chuck to trace with his tongue.
He keeps himself in place, accentuating the desperate way Blair rocks her hips forward, again and again, rubbing against his thigh like she knows he expects her to do.
"I knew you were eager," he whispers. She answers with only a whimper, and Chuck chooses that moment to pull her shirt up and off, watching the movement of her chest as she breathes, and he unclasps her bra easily, slides it off her arms and throws it against the dead fireplace.
He motions them around, and Blair tumbles back on the bed, her shoes falling off with a sharp noise, and she pushes her hips up for Chuck to slither off her skirt, her tights and her panties in one swift move. She sits up then, and moves to find her head between the pillows as Chuck climbs on the bed, positions himself between her legs and unbuttons his pants. She wants to change places again, get over him to take his pants off and fuck herself on his dick, but at this point her locomotor system doesn't have enough strength to make a move against Chuck, and Blair herself is too lost in the way his hands are cupping her breasts and his fingers are twitching one of her nipples while his tongue circles and sucks at the other, so she settles for wrapping her legs around him, over the curve of his ass, jerking her hips up to suggest that he should do what she can't right now, but, instead of taking off his pants, he holds the back of her thigh, adjusting to her and stroking her ass, and maneuvers between their pressed bodies to sneak a hand on her belly and trace small circles as it makes its way downward.
She's panting now, she's aware of that, and she begins to try to push his pants down the moment he slides two fingers into her cunt.
"You like that?" he growls. She arches her back, and he softly bites the bottom of her breast as he circles her clit with his thumb, drawing a prolonged out of her throat. "You're so wet for me, you little whore. I bet your boyfriend never got you so hot and bothered," he goes on, and it's cruel, and it's just like that - she groans in reply, jerks her hips up a couple of times, his fingers moving in and out of her, and, when he moves back to take off his pants, she slaps him across the face.
She's pretty sure the skin is red, although the dimness doesn't let her make out all that many colors.
The sound and feel of the slap sober her up enough to turn their positions around and pin him down to the bed with her hands on his chest, kneeling at each side of his thighs, sitting up. She pulls the stray hair that falls over her eyes back behind her ear and glares at him as seriously and coldly as she can manage completely undressed, which is pretty impressive, if she does say so herself.
"You," she starts, and she has to cough to get her voice out, and he smirks at that. She pushes him down. "You have no right to call me that," she finally manages, "and you have no right to talk about Nate like that." And to prove her point, she slides her hand up to his neck and presses her thumb against his trachea for a few seconds, enough to wipe the conceited expression off his face.
By then, after he gasps for air, she expects a witty retort, or an insult, but all she gets is Chuck holding himself up on his hands and kissing her even more hungrily than before, attacking her mouth, and that's when the pants finally come off.
Somehow she doesn't know what happens between that and finding herself backwards on the bed, with her head almost sliding off the covers as Chuck leaves a quick trail of kisses down her body and buries his head between her legs, but she doesn't really care. He works her open with his fingers and his tongue, and has to hold her hips down onto the mattress so that she won't fall off the bed when she squirms and wriggles under him with her legs around his back. It's easy to make her curse under her breath, in whispers, because she's too classy to scream; it takes only a softer than normal touch or lick at her clit, and Chuck itself sounds like a curseword when he stops touching her and sucks at her groins instead to push her orgasm away.
She's pretty sure she kicks his back with her heels then, but it's not really purposeful, it's more of a way to get Chuck to stop being a tease, and he seems to understand easily; he gets three fingers inside her and works his thumb over her clit, moving forward over her, sucking at his nipples and then kissing her deeply until she arches her back, grasping desperately at the bed covers, throws her head out of his reach, gives him her neck and her collarbone and her breasts to lick instead, and it comes easy then, she comes easy then, the waves of pleasure flowing through her body, from her curling toes to the back of her neck.
Before she's had time to recover, Chuck is dragging her under him, in a position that is way less prone to falling down, and he stares at her open eyes, open mouth, open everything, her breathing slowly coming around, and then she murmurs a faint Come on for him to follow through.
He moves away then, leaning over the end of the bed to find his pants on the floor, giving her a view of his ass and his leaking cock, and her head is clear enough to think how different his body and his ways are from Nate's, so much rougher in treatment and so much more effective, and it is also clear enough to punch the thought away.
She hears the wrapper tear open under Chuck's teeth.
"Come on, Chuck, you're supposed to be a pro at this," she says, as annoyingly as she can manage, although the breathy sound of her voice probably deems the attempt worthless. "Do you keep all your ladies waiting?"
The mattress sinks under her, and then Chuck's face is hovering over her face, going in to kiss her and pulling back again.
"I just made you come," Chuck says, questioningly, like he's not completely certain about it, staring at her face to try and figure out what to make of it and God, Blair loves getting him like that, flustered and not so confident now.
"So you don't plan on doing it again?" she finally asks, "Why do you think I called you?" and he bites her lower lip in response before grabbing her thighs and fitting their bodies together. She can feel his cock pushing at her entrance, hot and wet and so hard, and he doesn't take any extra time before driving himself into her, slowly enough so that it won't hurt her, not that Blair would mind much if it did. He looks at her face to get consent to start moving, and she closes her eyes and throws her head back, lets him figure it out himself. It's slow at first, trying to pick up a rhythm, and then Blair starts moving her hips along, clenching and unclenching her muscles in a delightfully sadistic way that has Chuck making desperate gestures as he thrusts back and forth into her, his hands wandering directionless across her body. He's always been so easy to learn.
She tangles her fingers in his hair and tugs, clenching around him again, and he comes with her name in a whisper, a sigh, and the beginning of an I love you that he bites back and she pretends not to catch.
*
She considers telling him to stay the night. Seriously, she does. For about a second or two, before knocking it down on grounds of, well, complete and utter wrongness of the situation. She's about to regret it already, and she thought it would only happen in the morning, after a good night of sleep and advice from her pillows. She retrives her underwear from the floor and goes to the bathroom to pee and cover herself, and, when she comes out, Chuck is already full dressed and putting on his jacket.
They look at each other for a second, and she knows what he's thinking. He's thinking, Why did you call me and not Nate?, and how if he asked she would say that things with Nate are too fragile to meddle with right now, and then he would ask whether she does or doesn't think that sleeping with him again might meddle with her fragile things with Nate, and she would answer that it's different and dismiss the topic and subtly imply that he should leave.
Instead, he says, as he throws his scarf around his neck,
"I can't believe you listen to Hilary Duff."
And she says with intent,
"I can't believe you recognized a line from a song of hers that isn't even famous."
And he goes away with a smirk and a chuckle instead of a heart a little bit more broken reflecting on his face.
Regardless of this, however, she's kind of thankful that he doesn't stay, because that way she can put on her fluffy pajamas and feel safe without having to give any sort of explanation.
*
She doesn't tell Serena. Right, she's supposed to be honest with her, but she doubts this may help in the slightest. What are they going to do, double date? She doesn't want to date Chuck, and Chuck doesn't want to date her unless she wants to date him and only him, it seems, and she's a good liar, she really is, but she doesn't want to lie about that. (Omitting doesn't count as a lie, never mind what Cosmo says.) There's no positive side to that lie, anyway, unless Nate gets jealous and decides to go back to her, which actually sounds rather appealing to her.
Feeding the rumor mill, ignoring what people say. Maybe she should do that, except she knows Chuck will look at her face and reject her, because they lie the same way, and because they've been there before and he knows her steps.
You may not believe it, but she decides to tell Dan instead.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asks after that, a little louder than she expected. His loft is empty except for them, and Blair feels terribly weird standing in the middle of his living-room with her coat still on and her sunglasses in her hand.
She can't really believe it either.
"I don't know. This was a horrible idea. Forget I ever asked," she says then, turning around.
"You didn't ask anything," Dan points out. "Not that it would make any difference, since I don't know anything about either him or you, but you didn't."
"Oh," Blair murmurs. "Do you think I should pretend I love Chuck and date him to get Nate back?"
"What?" Dan asks, and his confused face is so much less cute than Chuck's. For starters, it makes her feel stupid.
"Do you think I should-" she starts, enunciating each word, but he gestures her to stop with a hand.
"I heard you the first time. I just don't see how I can help you with that."
"Well, if you were Nate, would you be jealous and take me back?"
"What I'm thinking right now is, if I were Chuck, and thank God I'm not, I would kill you when you left me."
"So you think I should stay away for my own safety?" she attempts.
"No. No. I mean, yeah, that's a part of it, but I'm more worried about you manipulating everyone. Not that I'm surprised, and believe me, I don't give a fuck about what happens to Chuck, but just consider someone you're in love with pretended to love you just to get at someone else. Do you really want to do that to him?"
"He's not in love with me, Humphrey, he just likes the idea of having me."
"And that's why he rejected you, right?"
She shouldn't have told him anything. He's going to tell Serena, and even if he doesn't, she's used to getting understanding from people she consults with, not a bewildered face and sarcasm. This isn't nice.
"Forget I ever asked," she says, and he lifts his hand to suggest that she stays, but she ignores him and leaves, shutting the door behind her.
*
"You slept with Chuck again?" Serena asks on the phone, and Blair makes plans to poison Dan when he least expects it.
"I'm single now. I don't have to give explanations to anyone."
She hears a chuckle at the other end of the line.
"What?"
"That's it, you get it."
"Get what?"
"Okay, you don't get it." Serena sighs. "Give me a couple of minutes, I'll be over there."
*
And she is, of course, a part of the new and improved Serena, punctual and promise-keeping.
They sit on the couch with equally beautiful margaritas, and Serena monologizes about how the whole point she's trying to work Blair towards is the carelessness about what everyone else thinks as long as she's okay with herself, and then she asks,
"What the heck were you thinking, anyway?"
Blair blinks at that. "I wasn't. I was drunk." Which technically is a lie, but just of exaggeration, so it doesn't really count either.
"But why did you call Chuck instead of Nate?"
"Because things with Nate are too-" she starts, but Serena interrupts.
"On the ropes? And do you think this helps?"
"I think it helps more than calling Nate for sex. He would have hung up on me, anyway."
"Why didn't you call me?"
"For sex?"
"No. For company. I've been leaving you alone all these Fridays and I think, well, she says she's sick, or that she's got something to do, she'll be okay, but I know you're not, but I don't want to barge in uninvited, you know? I'm here for you. I don't want boredom or loneliness to drive you crazy, Blair, you're my best friend. Your sanity is more important to me than going out with Dan, I thought you knew that."
Blair smiles, and hugs her, and cries.
It's good to have a shoulder to lean on. She'd almost forgotten what it felt like.
*
Then it's Monday, and people are looking at her like she's news, and Blair really thought the whole thing had already blown down. Serena squeezes her arm then, for support, and they keep walking until they get to the restroom, where Serena pulls out her cellphone and shows her a text message from Gossip Girl.
It's a picture of Chuck, wearing the same thing he was wearing on Friday, coming out of Blair's house. Who lurks around her house at this point, anyway? She's doing nothing of interest to anyone.
Spotted: C. coming out of B.'s house on Friday night, disheveled and off track. Looks like B. has found a bed to sleep on, after all.
Except that.
She chuckles, and Serena observes her face, and Blair just shakes her head and laughs. "It's fine. Really. Let them think whatever they want."
Honestly, she's just trying to figure out when Nate's going to call.
At least until she sees him sitting with Jenny Humphrey at lunch, laughing like a moron and whispering in her ear and being so sweet that it makes Blair's stomach bark, and her fist tingle with the need to punch him, and then nothing, emptiness, the sort of melancholy sadness that she felt when she realized that she'd given up on ballet.
It's different, though.
Serena looks at her weird when she tells her, but she doesn't speak what's on her mind. "I'm not really sure yet."
*
She spots Chuck by his car after class, and walks up to him and kisses him, in front of everyone. She looks at his face afterwards, and she sees him ignore her and get into the car, drive away from her.
Her stomach hurts now.
*
About that.
Surprisingly, she's pretty sure it's not the feeling of embarrassment, of getting left when most of the people she goes to school with are looking. She smiles a cruel smile, so she thinks that's covered for the most part. Revenge, or cruelty, or payback - anything but the truth, anything but the fact that she just kissed Chuck like she meant it and he left without even a smile and her stomach hurt at that, because it's not used to it, and she doesn't want it to be. Why should she get used to a feeling that she doesn't enjoy, right? It's not like she plans on being rejected many more times in her life. And she refuses to think this was a rejection, anyway.
She prefers to think Chuck - well. Retired to his headquarters to think upon what this means makes him sound like a princess, but it's pretty much that, worded differently. And it's not like Chuck doesn't have a princessy attitude, sometimes. You could say he's pretty, and he's definitely alluring, and he's so shallow that Blair is sure he would marry Prince Charming just because he's the prince, not because he's charming. It could be Prince Obnoxious and he would marry him anyway, if it gave him status and clothes.
In a way, Chuck is the male Blair, only way more annoying and whorish, and this may make her wonder for a second if that means she's a lesbian, what with how Nate is basically a girl, but she doesn't dwell on that. It's not the point, anyhow, and it's childish to make a list of why Nate is a girl.
(One, he talks about feelings more than she has ever wanted to talk about feelings. Seriously, she's gorgeous and she wants him and everyone expects them to be together, why mess with that for something like love? That is so historical romance. Two, he has put off having sex for way longer than any virgin should, especially when he's supposed to be doing it with another virgin who won't make him feel inadequate. Three, he slept with Serena when they were together, and then broke up with her for sleeping with Chuck when they were not. A person only has the right to do that when a person is either a girl -and possibly suffering from PMS, may Serena forgive her for thinking that- or is using it as an excuse to cover their true motives.
Which, well. Maybe that's why he broke up with her. He's with Jenny Humphrey now, apparently, even though Little J. is starting to dress even more outrageously than herself, which only makes Blair think that she's got more things to make up for. But still. What's really curious, though, is that it doesn't really make her feel jealous. She's been jealous, she knows what it's like. This is more like anger, honestly, mixed with just the smallest bit of vindictiveness. Because Jenny's taken over her life, and thank God for Serena, and she can't believe she willingly hangs out with that little vixen's brother, and why on Earth would someone -the keyword being someone, whoever, not specifically Nate- choose a kid like Jenny over her, anyway? He's seen Dan ogling her, or something like it, and Dan is so in love with Serena he would paint the entire Plaza Hotel with his blood if she wanted him to.
Blood, see, her mind's angry, and thus is getting revengeful. That's what her mind does.)
She rambles all this out to Serena later that day, including the parenthetical.
"Dan doesn't ogle you, he just doesn't understand you," Serena answers.
"Not helping."
"Well, at least now you know that Nate isn't in love with me."
"And what a difference that makes," Blair says sarcastically.
Serena smiles condescendingly, and Blair would punch her if it wasn't for the fact that she just listened to a monologue that probably didn't make any sense. Then Serena pulls her cellphone out from her bag, and calls someone.
"Chuck?" Blair hears her say. "We need to talk."
They arrange a date and an hour, later on the week, and Blair looks at her questioningly.
"Let's just solve it out. You can't keep dancing around each other forever, especially when I have to deal with the both of you on a daily basis. It's not good for my schedule," she says, and laughs.
*
"I think he's in love with you," she tells her over Skype, with a pained expression in her face and a bit of an amused smile.
"You think Chuck is in love. Seriously," Blair answers. Serena shrugs.
"Think about it. If it had to happen, it just had to happen with you. Or Nate. I think you'd probably feel worse if he'd fallen for Nate."
Blair sighs.
"Come on, B., I'm not happy about this. You and Chuck? He could turn you evil for good. I don't want that to happen. But I saw you out of school the other day, and you're so hung up on him, and I think you should give him a go. For real. Not for Nate, but for you."
"I won't be benefiting from any-" Blair starts.
"God, I can't believe I'm defending Chuck Bass," Serena says, almost to herself, "Hell is so going to freeze over before this conversation is done." She takes a deep breath. "He actually said that you're a bitch."
"That's endearing," Blair interrupts with a puff.
"That was so impressively, utterly wrong. He's a terrible actor. You could tell he was saying 'Oh, oh'," Serena crosses her arms over her chest in an impression of - something, Blair isn't sure what. "'She's going to break my heart in little pieces.'" A damsel in distress? "He just couldn't say it out loud, for obvious reasons, but I think he may have been hoping I would pick it up from the insult. You know Chuck is twisted like that."
Blair laughs. "He is."
And she likes it.
*
It's easy to corner someone when there is only a stone wall behind, and she does that with Chuck. Walks up to where he's leaning back against the staircase wall, dismisses the guys around her. Maybe the whole Nate thing wasn't so off, she thinks.
Anyway, the guys are still looking, and Chuck says, "What?" like he's annoyed. He leads well opposite her, in a very "the thin line between love and hate" way.
She steps on the space between them and kisses him publicly again, takes her time, lasts it out, doesn't let go until Chuck is breathing oddly against her mouth, and it's obvious that she's not the only one interested.
"I'm not a love puppy," he whispers gravely into her mouth, and she smiles, self-satisfied, and walks steadily away.
Later, in the halls, she blows a kiss at him in a completely theatrical way, and he smiles at her, follows her with his eyes and his smug face.
Just like a love puppy, she mouths to herself.
*
You see, it's not that she wants to be Serena, if she has to be honest. It's more like she just wants to mean something by herself, not because of the rest of the world's approval and praise, and Serena's the only person she knows who does.
Gossip Girl. Blair, Blair/Chuck, Serena, Dan, implied Nate/Jenny. Mature, 6,700 words. Spoilers for everything that's aired until now.
Thanks to thecullenforce for the read-through!
Notes: I never write about canon couples, or couples that have a strong possibility of becoming canon, and I find it really difficult to write when the next episode is going to turn my story into an alternate reality. I've let myself loose with this, though, and I've had fun, hence the general structural instability. Sorry about that, by the way. Anyhow, if you read this, I would love some feedback, anything, you don't even have to put any effort into it. It's just there are some things here I've never tried before and I'd love to know how they work.
*
It is a truth universally acknowledged -or at least acknowledged at this time and in the Upper East Side of Manhattan- that every woman lacking a satisfactory social life -and isn't that everyone, nowadays?- wants to be Serena van der Woodsen.
Teenage girls want her looks and her status, middle-aged women reminisce their old days by living vicariously through her adventures -or at least the ones that Gossip Girl retells-, and a couple of guys here and there would like to live in her body, although for possibly dirtier purposes - not that anyone else's are particularly noble.
Blair? She's spent longer than every one of these women together wanting to be Serena van der Woodsen. She wants her blond hair and her style and her fame. Because Blair is sassy, and witty, but she needs an impressive outfit and a Serenaless situation to be heard, while Serena can just wear a pair of boring jeans and twirl her hair with a small amount of purpose in the middle of Central Park and even the people who don't know her -like the tourists with limited time who should be touring instead- will stare and sigh and sometimes even take a picture.
That's what Blair wants.
Definitely.
Then Serena goes away, and then she comes back and gets a boyfriend, and her theories kind of go straight to hell.
*
Serena's boyfriend isn't in the circle, and he's not rich and he definitely doesn't have an eye for style, but she pulls it off because she's, well, Serena van der Woodsen, and everyone is too busy admiring her to even consider for a second that she may be doing something wrong.
If Dan Humphrey was a cellphone, he would be sold out in about four hours from the moment Serena's photographed with him. That's Blair's theory. Serena's a Paris Hilton waiting to happen, only with a more natural smile and a warmer heart and less botox and more talent and - well, the comparison probably stops at the celebrity status and general self-centeredness part, but still. If she tattooed her face, everyone would follow suit.
And Blair used to be okay with that, until she got a taste of it. Of not just being in, but being the 'in' itself. Of setting trends and being noticed, for better or for worse.
You know, it's not so much that she wants Serena's life, at least after Serena's mother gets engaged to Bart Bass and she discovers that her brother is in a mental institution -it's certainly not the most desirable situation a person could find herself in-, but she wants the way Serena walks through it like a breeze and comes out looking even better, because that's everything - that's the appeal and the beauty and the happiness.
But Blair's not indifferent, and she appreciates that in a way, in the sense that she is much more self-aware than Serena's ever been - that is, until Chuck happens, just like the natural catastrophe he always had the potential to be, and it's not such a good trait at all.
*
"Why is it that you can sleep with two guys in one week and people worship you, and I sleep with two guys in my whole life and I'm a slut?"
Serena looks up from her computer.
"Hello to you too," she says with a smile, shutting down the laptop, and Blair takes it as an invitation to close the door behind her and sit on Serena's bed.
"I mean," Blair continues, "I wasn't even cheating, and most people think I've been sleeping with Nate since we got together, anyway. You caught syphilis at fifteen and no one gave you any crap about it."
This is the sort of thing that she wouldn't say out loud, but Serena's asked her to be honest with her, and Serena's the only friend she has in Manhattan, so she's giving boldness a chance.
"You're amazing," Serena says, looking intently at her, and chuckles.
"What?" Blair asks, honestly confused.
"I was a room service call away from being sent to boarding school by my mom, and Isabel didn't touch me for three months. I think she was afraid she'd get infected through my jacket." Serena chuckles at that.
Blair frowns. "Seriously?"
Serena shrugs and smiles sourly. "Yep. And you know why people didn't call me a slut? Because I didn't answer. I didn't have time to play along, I was too busy feeding the gossip mill. What's the point of insulting someone if you're not gonna get a reaction?"
And okay, maybe Serena's right, and Blair can really get through school and her friends back and - well, it's probably better not to think about Nate right now -, but Blair doesn't have that confidence, and she doesn't have that many things to keep herself occupied - not of the kind that doesn't require her to face people, anyhow.
"You're gonna have a heart attack if you keep worrying so much," Serena says. "Come on."
And she takes Blair shopping, because there's no better way to heal than that.
*
The thing with Serena's boyfriend not being a part of their usual social circle is that Blair feels observed every time he's around. She has good reason, because he looks at her a lot, like he's trying to figure out what to make of her and whether she's safe or not for Serena. And it's not that she blames him for that, considering everything she's done in the past, and that he's one of the two people who are giving her a chance, even if Dan is more there for Serena than he is for Blair, but you can't expect a girl to feel like anything other than the third wheel around a relatively new couple that she hasn't helped form. Before Serena fled to boarding school, there was Blair and Nate, and Serena and whoever she was planning to have sex with that night, and it was easy that way, because it was usual and it was them, but this is just plain weird.
She doesn't go out with them, but she stays in with them, and they watch a movie or play videogames, which is possibly the only thing in the world that Blair's truly awful at and doesn't mind, and then Blair takes a cab home, or Dan drives Serena and probably has sex with her in the car or in her hotel room or whatever, considering how hard it seems to be for him to keep his hands off of her in Blair's company. If he's the same around everyone, Blair can see why Vanessa doesn't hang out with them all that often.
On the positive side, though, it's actually rather entertaining to see Dan study her face every time he says something to her, because he has no idea how she's going to react, and it's not that she likes Dan or anything, not that way, but she's never had a lot of people look at her eyes instead of at her clothes or her hair or her - or Nate, and it feels nice to hold that kind of interest for a change.
She understands Serena a bit better now.
*
Of course, understanding her doesn't really change how annoying it is when Serena talks on the phone while Dan is kissing her, because she giggles intermittently and keeps muttering things to him, and that doesn't do any good for Blair's second-best complex.
"Hey," Serena finally manages to get out, and Blair says hello. "Dan and I were gonna go downtown to see this band play-" She giggles again, and Blair can hear a soft Stop, stop at the other end of the line. "Anyway, I don't remember the name, but they're supposed to be pretty good, and Vanessa knows the club owner and is getting us in, so you won't be alone with just me and Dan. You wanna come?"
Blair hears what she figures is a full kiss on the lips then, and she grimaces.
"Nah," she says, "I feel like I'm incubating a cold right now, it's probably better if I stay home tonight."
"Okay then," Serena says. "Do you want me to bring you anything?"
"No, don't worry, I'm fine, just a bit of a sore throat. I'll just see you tomorrow. Right?"
There's a pause before Serena answers, probably a result of her wondering how big a lie Blair is telling, but then she says, "Sure. Get better," and hangs up.
She's not sick, she hasn't been really sick in a long time, but the prospect of talking to Vanessa just makes her want to throw up. Not because she hates the girl, although she doesn't trust her very much, but because Vanessa will probably ask how it feels to be an outcast now, and then she will ask how it feels to have your heart broken, and Blair will say that that question can fly both ways, and Blair and a Vanessa type of girl? Only work in short, enmity-themed scenes, and this doesn't look to be one.
*
The second time it's easy enough to pretend that she's not into the band, since neither she or Serena have ever heard about it, and the third time she can just say she promised her mother to attend a party with her, but the fourth time, the call comes in so unexpectedly and so from Dan instead of Serena that the first excuse she comes up with is catching up with homework.
Dan doesn't argue with her, and considering that it's Dan he probably believes her, but she really needs to work on her excuse book.
Her mother is at some art event or another, and flipping through the two hundred decent channels her television catches makes her too sleepy to keep herself awake for too long after nine, so she goes to the kitchen, downs half a small glass of Scotch in one swallow and sighs. By the third repetition of the process, she's already feeling a little more interested in life, and by the time she's done getting dressed to be seen, with all the trips to the kitchen that includes, she's actually feeling both horny and dumb enough to call Chuck and say something that resounds in her head like an irrationally pissed off "Hey, do you do booty calls?" for minutes afterwards, and when she hangs up she's not even sure if he's said yes, and she's not even sure the ground hasn't swallowed her in advance for the utter guilt and embarrassment and just plain idiocy that she's pretty sure she's going to feel tomorrow morning.
The bell rings ten minutes later, though, so she figures he has somehow changed his mind since the last time she tried to get him to - oh. Different requests, she supposes.
What an asshole, she thinks boredly, but she lets him in, pulls him in by the stupid brown scarf he's chosen to wear tonight, and closes the door behind him.
*
"Eager, aren't we?" Chuck says with a smirk, following the noise of the knob clicking shut with that annoying tone of his, and Blair suddenly feels much more awake, or at least the need to be much more awake, because this is Chuck and God knows what Chuck could do if she didn't have the capacity to put up any resistance. She rolls her eyes and looks at him with a hand on her hip and what she hopes is a clearly irritated face.
"Oh, just shut up and kiss," she says, and he crosses the step between them, takes her arm and does. Kiss her, that is. Why it takes her by surprise must be some sort of consequence of the alcohol running through her insides, because it's not like they haven't done this before, and it's not like she doesn't know how Chuck kisses when he wants to appear in charge, all force and determination. He traces her lips with his tongue, slow and sure, and she opens her mouth for him just like she knows he expects of her. He pulls apart then, though, observing her and her half-closed eyes and the way she moves her mouth forward to try and capture his lips again.
"Did you just paraphrase Hilary Duff?" he asks, more composed than he should be by now, and it probably doesn't say anything good about her that Shut up and fuck me actually crosses her head, but at least she has enough self-control left to restrain from saying it out loud.
"Shut the fuck up, Bass," she commands instead, mix and match, grabbing both ends of his scarf and guiding him up to her bedroom. She walks backwards in high heels, sheer provocation, staring into his face to see how the desire boils and shows through his lustful eyes, his hands barely an inch from Blair's, his mouth half-open and his tongue intermittently wetting his lips.
She takes longer than necessary to get to her room, but he's not the only one who can be a tease, and she knows Chuck likes that, likes to be controlled by a woman more than he likes manhandling them, likes to have a heeled foot against his thigh threatening to throw him down the stairs, the certain fear that maybe it will go farther than a game. They get there eventually, though, soon enough, and Blair pushes him inside, kicking the door shut behind herself and loosening her grip at the scarf, sliding it off his neck and onto the floor, and replacing it with her hands on his chest, his shoulders.
He walks closer to her, pins her against the door, and kisses her for real this time, exploring her mouth with his tongue like he's forgotten the map. He tastes like peppermint gum and something that she can't quite pinpoint - rum, maybe; lemon -, and his hands rest perfectly on her hips, stroking slowly and almost, his fingertips brushing against the curve of her ass and the hollow of her hips over her skirt in rhythm with the way she moves her body back and forward in waves.
He leaves her mouth and her hips for a moment, only to take off his jacket and throw it on a chair nearby, and she pulls his cashmere sweater over his head and starts unbuttoning his shirt as he leaves a trail of warm kisses from her lips to her neck, licking at the corner of her mouth and the line of her jaw and random places here and there, making her shiver at the closeness, at his breath grazing her skin and his teeth nibbling at her collarbone, his hands pushing her t-shirt up and unzipping her skirt.
The contrast of his fingers and the soft fabric of her clothes makes her squirm against him, makes her breathing harder, louder, erratic. The streetlamps filter their light through her window, and Blair can see Chuck's smirk when she opens her eyes to take off his shirt, the contact of his hands disappearing and flying back to her skin in a matter of seconds. He looks intently into her eyes as he pushes a thigh between her legs and slides his knee up the polished wood, and Blair's head falls back against the door, exposing her neck for Chuck to trace with his tongue.
He keeps himself in place, accentuating the desperate way Blair rocks her hips forward, again and again, rubbing against his thigh like she knows he expects her to do.
"I knew you were eager," he whispers. She answers with only a whimper, and Chuck chooses that moment to pull her shirt up and off, watching the movement of her chest as she breathes, and he unclasps her bra easily, slides it off her arms and throws it against the dead fireplace.
He motions them around, and Blair tumbles back on the bed, her shoes falling off with a sharp noise, and she pushes her hips up for Chuck to slither off her skirt, her tights and her panties in one swift move. She sits up then, and moves to find her head between the pillows as Chuck climbs on the bed, positions himself between her legs and unbuttons his pants. She wants to change places again, get over him to take his pants off and fuck herself on his dick, but at this point her locomotor system doesn't have enough strength to make a move against Chuck, and Blair herself is too lost in the way his hands are cupping her breasts and his fingers are twitching one of her nipples while his tongue circles and sucks at the other, so she settles for wrapping her legs around him, over the curve of his ass, jerking her hips up to suggest that he should do what she can't right now, but, instead of taking off his pants, he holds the back of her thigh, adjusting to her and stroking her ass, and maneuvers between their pressed bodies to sneak a hand on her belly and trace small circles as it makes its way downward.
She's panting now, she's aware of that, and she begins to try to push his pants down the moment he slides two fingers into her cunt.
"You like that?" he growls. She arches her back, and he softly bites the bottom of her breast as he circles her clit with his thumb, drawing a prolonged out of her throat. "You're so wet for me, you little whore. I bet your boyfriend never got you so hot and bothered," he goes on, and it's cruel, and it's just like that - she groans in reply, jerks her hips up a couple of times, his fingers moving in and out of her, and, when he moves back to take off his pants, she slaps him across the face.
She's pretty sure the skin is red, although the dimness doesn't let her make out all that many colors.
The sound and feel of the slap sober her up enough to turn their positions around and pin him down to the bed with her hands on his chest, kneeling at each side of his thighs, sitting up. She pulls the stray hair that falls over her eyes back behind her ear and glares at him as seriously and coldly as she can manage completely undressed, which is pretty impressive, if she does say so herself.
"You," she starts, and she has to cough to get her voice out, and he smirks at that. She pushes him down. "You have no right to call me that," she finally manages, "and you have no right to talk about Nate like that." And to prove her point, she slides her hand up to his neck and presses her thumb against his trachea for a few seconds, enough to wipe the conceited expression off his face.
By then, after he gasps for air, she expects a witty retort, or an insult, but all she gets is Chuck holding himself up on his hands and kissing her even more hungrily than before, attacking her mouth, and that's when the pants finally come off.
Somehow she doesn't know what happens between that and finding herself backwards on the bed, with her head almost sliding off the covers as Chuck leaves a quick trail of kisses down her body and buries his head between her legs, but she doesn't really care. He works her open with his fingers and his tongue, and has to hold her hips down onto the mattress so that she won't fall off the bed when she squirms and wriggles under him with her legs around his back. It's easy to make her curse under her breath, in whispers, because she's too classy to scream; it takes only a softer than normal touch or lick at her clit, and Chuck itself sounds like a curseword when he stops touching her and sucks at her groins instead to push her orgasm away.
She's pretty sure she kicks his back with her heels then, but it's not really purposeful, it's more of a way to get Chuck to stop being a tease, and he seems to understand easily; he gets three fingers inside her and works his thumb over her clit, moving forward over her, sucking at his nipples and then kissing her deeply until she arches her back, grasping desperately at the bed covers, throws her head out of his reach, gives him her neck and her collarbone and her breasts to lick instead, and it comes easy then, she comes easy then, the waves of pleasure flowing through her body, from her curling toes to the back of her neck.
Before she's had time to recover, Chuck is dragging her under him, in a position that is way less prone to falling down, and he stares at her open eyes, open mouth, open everything, her breathing slowly coming around, and then she murmurs a faint Come on for him to follow through.
He moves away then, leaning over the end of the bed to find his pants on the floor, giving her a view of his ass and his leaking cock, and her head is clear enough to think how different his body and his ways are from Nate's, so much rougher in treatment and so much more effective, and it is also clear enough to punch the thought away.
She hears the wrapper tear open under Chuck's teeth.
"Come on, Chuck, you're supposed to be a pro at this," she says, as annoyingly as she can manage, although the breathy sound of her voice probably deems the attempt worthless. "Do you keep all your ladies waiting?"
The mattress sinks under her, and then Chuck's face is hovering over her face, going in to kiss her and pulling back again.
"I just made you come," Chuck says, questioningly, like he's not completely certain about it, staring at her face to try and figure out what to make of it and God, Blair loves getting him like that, flustered and not so confident now.
"So you don't plan on doing it again?" she finally asks, "Why do you think I called you?" and he bites her lower lip in response before grabbing her thighs and fitting their bodies together. She can feel his cock pushing at her entrance, hot and wet and so hard, and he doesn't take any extra time before driving himself into her, slowly enough so that it won't hurt her, not that Blair would mind much if it did. He looks at her face to get consent to start moving, and she closes her eyes and throws her head back, lets him figure it out himself. It's slow at first, trying to pick up a rhythm, and then Blair starts moving her hips along, clenching and unclenching her muscles in a delightfully sadistic way that has Chuck making desperate gestures as he thrusts back and forth into her, his hands wandering directionless across her body. He's always been so easy to learn.
She tangles her fingers in his hair and tugs, clenching around him again, and he comes with her name in a whisper, a sigh, and the beginning of an I love you that he bites back and she pretends not to catch.
*
She considers telling him to stay the night. Seriously, she does. For about a second or two, before knocking it down on grounds of, well, complete and utter wrongness of the situation. She's about to regret it already, and she thought it would only happen in the morning, after a good night of sleep and advice from her pillows. She retrives her underwear from the floor and goes to the bathroom to pee and cover herself, and, when she comes out, Chuck is already full dressed and putting on his jacket.
They look at each other for a second, and she knows what he's thinking. He's thinking, Why did you call me and not Nate?, and how if he asked she would say that things with Nate are too fragile to meddle with right now, and then he would ask whether she does or doesn't think that sleeping with him again might meddle with her fragile things with Nate, and she would answer that it's different and dismiss the topic and subtly imply that he should leave.
Instead, he says, as he throws his scarf around his neck,
"I can't believe you listen to Hilary Duff."
And she says with intent,
"I can't believe you recognized a line from a song of hers that isn't even famous."
And he goes away with a smirk and a chuckle instead of a heart a little bit more broken reflecting on his face.
Regardless of this, however, she's kind of thankful that he doesn't stay, because that way she can put on her fluffy pajamas and feel safe without having to give any sort of explanation.
*
She doesn't tell Serena. Right, she's supposed to be honest with her, but she doubts this may help in the slightest. What are they going to do, double date? She doesn't want to date Chuck, and Chuck doesn't want to date her unless she wants to date him and only him, it seems, and she's a good liar, she really is, but she doesn't want to lie about that. (Omitting doesn't count as a lie, never mind what Cosmo says.) There's no positive side to that lie, anyway, unless Nate gets jealous and decides to go back to her, which actually sounds rather appealing to her.
Feeding the rumor mill, ignoring what people say. Maybe she should do that, except she knows Chuck will look at her face and reject her, because they lie the same way, and because they've been there before and he knows her steps.
You may not believe it, but she decides to tell Dan instead.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asks after that, a little louder than she expected. His loft is empty except for them, and Blair feels terribly weird standing in the middle of his living-room with her coat still on and her sunglasses in her hand.
She can't really believe it either.
"I don't know. This was a horrible idea. Forget I ever asked," she says then, turning around.
"You didn't ask anything," Dan points out. "Not that it would make any difference, since I don't know anything about either him or you, but you didn't."
"Oh," Blair murmurs. "Do you think I should pretend I love Chuck and date him to get Nate back?"
"What?" Dan asks, and his confused face is so much less cute than Chuck's. For starters, it makes her feel stupid.
"Do you think I should-" she starts, enunciating each word, but he gestures her to stop with a hand.
"I heard you the first time. I just don't see how I can help you with that."
"Well, if you were Nate, would you be jealous and take me back?"
"What I'm thinking right now is, if I were Chuck, and thank God I'm not, I would kill you when you left me."
"So you think I should stay away for my own safety?" she attempts.
"No. No. I mean, yeah, that's a part of it, but I'm more worried about you manipulating everyone. Not that I'm surprised, and believe me, I don't give a fuck about what happens to Chuck, but just consider someone you're in love with pretended to love you just to get at someone else. Do you really want to do that to him?"
"He's not in love with me, Humphrey, he just likes the idea of having me."
"And that's why he rejected you, right?"
She shouldn't have told him anything. He's going to tell Serena, and even if he doesn't, she's used to getting understanding from people she consults with, not a bewildered face and sarcasm. This isn't nice.
"Forget I ever asked," she says, and he lifts his hand to suggest that she stays, but she ignores him and leaves, shutting the door behind her.
*
"You slept with Chuck again?" Serena asks on the phone, and Blair makes plans to poison Dan when he least expects it.
"I'm single now. I don't have to give explanations to anyone."
She hears a chuckle at the other end of the line.
"What?"
"That's it, you get it."
"Get what?"
"Okay, you don't get it." Serena sighs. "Give me a couple of minutes, I'll be over there."
*
And she is, of course, a part of the new and improved Serena, punctual and promise-keeping.
They sit on the couch with equally beautiful margaritas, and Serena monologizes about how the whole point she's trying to work Blair towards is the carelessness about what everyone else thinks as long as she's okay with herself, and then she asks,
"What the heck were you thinking, anyway?"
Blair blinks at that. "I wasn't. I was drunk." Which technically is a lie, but just of exaggeration, so it doesn't really count either.
"But why did you call Chuck instead of Nate?"
"Because things with Nate are too-" she starts, but Serena interrupts.
"On the ropes? And do you think this helps?"
"I think it helps more than calling Nate for sex. He would have hung up on me, anyway."
"Why didn't you call me?"
"For sex?"
"No. For company. I've been leaving you alone all these Fridays and I think, well, she says she's sick, or that she's got something to do, she'll be okay, but I know you're not, but I don't want to barge in uninvited, you know? I'm here for you. I don't want boredom or loneliness to drive you crazy, Blair, you're my best friend. Your sanity is more important to me than going out with Dan, I thought you knew that."
Blair smiles, and hugs her, and cries.
It's good to have a shoulder to lean on. She'd almost forgotten what it felt like.
*
Then it's Monday, and people are looking at her like she's news, and Blair really thought the whole thing had already blown down. Serena squeezes her arm then, for support, and they keep walking until they get to the restroom, where Serena pulls out her cellphone and shows her a text message from Gossip Girl.
It's a picture of Chuck, wearing the same thing he was wearing on Friday, coming out of Blair's house. Who lurks around her house at this point, anyway? She's doing nothing of interest to anyone.
Spotted: C. coming out of B.'s house on Friday night, disheveled and off track. Looks like B. has found a bed to sleep on, after all.
Except that.
She chuckles, and Serena observes her face, and Blair just shakes her head and laughs. "It's fine. Really. Let them think whatever they want."
Honestly, she's just trying to figure out when Nate's going to call.
At least until she sees him sitting with Jenny Humphrey at lunch, laughing like a moron and whispering in her ear and being so sweet that it makes Blair's stomach bark, and her fist tingle with the need to punch him, and then nothing, emptiness, the sort of melancholy sadness that she felt when she realized that she'd given up on ballet.
It's different, though.
Serena looks at her weird when she tells her, but she doesn't speak what's on her mind. "I'm not really sure yet."
*
She spots Chuck by his car after class, and walks up to him and kisses him, in front of everyone. She looks at his face afterwards, and she sees him ignore her and get into the car, drive away from her.
Her stomach hurts now.
*
About that.
Surprisingly, she's pretty sure it's not the feeling of embarrassment, of getting left when most of the people she goes to school with are looking. She smiles a cruel smile, so she thinks that's covered for the most part. Revenge, or cruelty, or payback - anything but the truth, anything but the fact that she just kissed Chuck like she meant it and he left without even a smile and her stomach hurt at that, because it's not used to it, and she doesn't want it to be. Why should she get used to a feeling that she doesn't enjoy, right? It's not like she plans on being rejected many more times in her life. And she refuses to think this was a rejection, anyway.
She prefers to think Chuck - well. Retired to his headquarters to think upon what this means makes him sound like a princess, but it's pretty much that, worded differently. And it's not like Chuck doesn't have a princessy attitude, sometimes. You could say he's pretty, and he's definitely alluring, and he's so shallow that Blair is sure he would marry Prince Charming just because he's the prince, not because he's charming. It could be Prince Obnoxious and he would marry him anyway, if it gave him status and clothes.
In a way, Chuck is the male Blair, only way more annoying and whorish, and this may make her wonder for a second if that means she's a lesbian, what with how Nate is basically a girl, but she doesn't dwell on that. It's not the point, anyhow, and it's childish to make a list of why Nate is a girl.
(One, he talks about feelings more than she has ever wanted to talk about feelings. Seriously, she's gorgeous and she wants him and everyone expects them to be together, why mess with that for something like love? That is so historical romance. Two, he has put off having sex for way longer than any virgin should, especially when he's supposed to be doing it with another virgin who won't make him feel inadequate. Three, he slept with Serena when they were together, and then broke up with her for sleeping with Chuck when they were not. A person only has the right to do that when a person is either a girl -and possibly suffering from PMS, may Serena forgive her for thinking that- or is using it as an excuse to cover their true motives.
Which, well. Maybe that's why he broke up with her. He's with Jenny Humphrey now, apparently, even though Little J. is starting to dress even more outrageously than herself, which only makes Blair think that she's got more things to make up for. But still. What's really curious, though, is that it doesn't really make her feel jealous. She's been jealous, she knows what it's like. This is more like anger, honestly, mixed with just the smallest bit of vindictiveness. Because Jenny's taken over her life, and thank God for Serena, and she can't believe she willingly hangs out with that little vixen's brother, and why on Earth would someone -the keyword being someone, whoever, not specifically Nate- choose a kid like Jenny over her, anyway? He's seen Dan ogling her, or something like it, and Dan is so in love with Serena he would paint the entire Plaza Hotel with his blood if she wanted him to.
Blood, see, her mind's angry, and thus is getting revengeful. That's what her mind does.)
She rambles all this out to Serena later that day, including the parenthetical.
"Dan doesn't ogle you, he just doesn't understand you," Serena answers.
"Not helping."
"Well, at least now you know that Nate isn't in love with me."
"And what a difference that makes," Blair says sarcastically.
Serena smiles condescendingly, and Blair would punch her if it wasn't for the fact that she just listened to a monologue that probably didn't make any sense. Then Serena pulls her cellphone out from her bag, and calls someone.
"Chuck?" Blair hears her say. "We need to talk."
They arrange a date and an hour, later on the week, and Blair looks at her questioningly.
"Let's just solve it out. You can't keep dancing around each other forever, especially when I have to deal with the both of you on a daily basis. It's not good for my schedule," she says, and laughs.
*
"I think he's in love with you," she tells her over Skype, with a pained expression in her face and a bit of an amused smile.
"You think Chuck is in love. Seriously," Blair answers. Serena shrugs.
"Think about it. If it had to happen, it just had to happen with you. Or Nate. I think you'd probably feel worse if he'd fallen for Nate."
Blair sighs.
"Come on, B., I'm not happy about this. You and Chuck? He could turn you evil for good. I don't want that to happen. But I saw you out of school the other day, and you're so hung up on him, and I think you should give him a go. For real. Not for Nate, but for you."
"I won't be benefiting from any-" Blair starts.
"God, I can't believe I'm defending Chuck Bass," Serena says, almost to herself, "Hell is so going to freeze over before this conversation is done." She takes a deep breath. "He actually said that you're a bitch."
"That's endearing," Blair interrupts with a puff.
"That was so impressively, utterly wrong. He's a terrible actor. You could tell he was saying 'Oh, oh'," Serena crosses her arms over her chest in an impression of - something, Blair isn't sure what. "'She's going to break my heart in little pieces.'" A damsel in distress? "He just couldn't say it out loud, for obvious reasons, but I think he may have been hoping I would pick it up from the insult. You know Chuck is twisted like that."
Blair laughs. "He is."
And she likes it.
*
It's easy to corner someone when there is only a stone wall behind, and she does that with Chuck. Walks up to where he's leaning back against the staircase wall, dismisses the guys around her. Maybe the whole Nate thing wasn't so off, she thinks.
Anyway, the guys are still looking, and Chuck says, "What?" like he's annoyed. He leads well opposite her, in a very "the thin line between love and hate" way.
She steps on the space between them and kisses him publicly again, takes her time, lasts it out, doesn't let go until Chuck is breathing oddly against her mouth, and it's obvious that she's not the only one interested.
"I'm not a love puppy," he whispers gravely into her mouth, and she smiles, self-satisfied, and walks steadily away.
Later, in the halls, she blows a kiss at him in a completely theatrical way, and he smiles at her, follows her with his eyes and his smug face.
Just like a love puppy, she mouths to herself.
*
You see, it's not that she wants to be Serena, if she has to be honest. It's more like she just wants to mean something by herself, not because of the rest of the world's approval and praise, and Serena's the only person she knows who does.