Perdition Chapter Two
Title: Perdition
Author: Noirreigne
Pairing: Blair/Chuck & Blair/?
Rating: R for language and smut.
Spoilers: None
Summary: To bottomless perdition, there to dwell. Chuck deals with Blair's death, but is she really gone? B/C B/? AU/Future.
( Previous Chapters )
“Did you get in to see him?” Serena asked. Her normal effervescent personality was absent, her face tense and drawn. She gestured towards the seat next to her in an open invitation for Nate to join her on the plush sofa. He paused to admire the lovely picture she made her hair bathed in the sunlight that streamed in from the floor to ceiling picture windows. Her artistically, bordering on the obnoxious, decorated penthouse was uncharacteristically empty and somber. Normally teeming with manufactured gaiety from slumming socialites and various talented émigrés from the local artist’s quarter the place was unrecognizable.
“I did.” Seating himself at her side, shoulders slumped Nate threaded his fingers through his hair, contemplating the right words to describe his meeting with Chuck.
A mixture of relief, fear and hope danced across her features. “I thought you might. You’re the one person I thought he might have neglected to add to his stupid do not admit list. Especially since you haven’t spoken since …” Her voice thickened the words stuck in her throat like flies in honey. Overwhelmed, she waited for the pain to ease before continuing. “I still can’t believe he has a list of people that are banned from his suite.”
“He never bothered to ban me.” Nate’s voice was tinged with bitterness, at odds with the sorrow glinting in his eyes.
“That’s what I was counting on, part of the reason I sent you. Well, that and I hoped that the sight of you would get some reaction out of him. Anything…”
“It got a reaction. Just not the one you probably expected.”
“What do you mean?” Her delicate brows knitted in consternation, her jaw tightening as she readied herself for the worst.
“ Serena, it’s bad. Worse than you expected.” He hesitated to even say the words. “He sees Blair.”
“What?” Her eyes widened in astonishment, her mouth falling open in shock.
He captured her gaze, intent on conveying his seriousness. “He sees Blair.”
“What? Like a ghost?”
“Maybe? I don’t know.“ He was at a loss. He had no clue how to explain what he had witnessed. He would have thought the whole experience a dream if not for the fact he had just come from Chuck’s and he was painfully awake. “He was talking to her like she was right there in the room with us, standing next to me. ”
“Oh, God. What is he on? He actually sees her? I knew things were bad. The last time I saw him he was so weird, there were no sleazy innuendos. No comments on how incest was best or how the family that plays together stays together. What is wrong with him?” Serena paced the room in bursts of staccato movements, her own version of zoo behavior.
“It has to be drugs or alcohol. Maybe some new drug cocktail or maybe a complete mental breakdown? Who knows,” he sighed. “It’s Chuck. It could be anything.”
Serena sat back down, awkwardly clearing her throat as she looked at him warily. “I know this sounds crazy, but do you think maybe she is haunting him?” She asked hopefully, deliberately pretending not to see the look of incredulity and disbelief in Nate’s answering gaze. “They never did find her. Maybe she can’t rest until we find her and bring her home. You know she would hate being buried anywhere but the UES.”
“You can’t be serious.” Nate weighed her with a skeptical squint.
“You’re right. It’s crazy,” she agreed disappointed. “I just would prefer to believe that Chuck isn’t an insane addict and Blair is still hanging around in some crazy kind of after-life. ”
“Me too. “ Nate grasped her hand in comfort.
Laying her head on his shoulder they sat quietly, chasing memories of Blair. Time was lost, the fading sunlight creating wispy shadows that skirted the room, heralding the undeniable approach of dusk.
“We have to do something,” Serena murmured.
“What can we do?” Nate regarded her somberly, his eyes infinitely sad. “He has been a mess since Blair died. If doesn’t matter if it is the drugs or the psychosis that is bringing her back. He won’t want to risk losing her again by getting treatment. He will stay on this path even if it kills him.
“We can’t just sit back and do nothing. When Blair…” Her voice cracked as she kept her encroaching tears at bay. “I knew that I could never be whole again. If we lose Chuck I don’t know how to come back from that.” The tears finally came spilling from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. Clumsily she brushed them away with the palms of her hands.
“He’s a grown man. What are we going to do lock him up?” Nate asked, half joking.
“I don’t know. What exactly did he say when you saw him?”
“Not much. He may have forgotten to blackball me from his suite, but he wasn’t happy to see me. He blames me.” His voice resonated with hurt and remorse.
“He doesn’t blame you,” she said soothingly.
“He should.” He exhaled sharply, shoving his hands in his pockets and slumping into the sofa.
“None of this was your fault. Except maybe the part where you stopped thinking,
she said with a hint of sarcasm. “Honestly Nate, what were you thinking?”
Head bowed, guilt aflame in his chest, he sighed. “I don’t know. It’s stupid, but I never expected they would get married. It never bothered me that they were dating, probably, because I never it would last. You know how they were. Hating each other and swearing it was over one minute, screwing the next.” Serena nodded, a smile hovering as she remembered.
“When they got engaged, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Somewhere In the back of my mind part of me still expected we would find our way back to each other. Our future engagement and marriage was all she ever talked about from the time we were six. It was so entrenched in my head that every time I thought about marriage I pictured her. I always thought we had plenty of time. Then Chuck proposed and I had to at least let her know how I felt. It was only fair.”
Serena looked at him with pity. “Nate, I love you, but you’re an ass.”
“I know. I was stupid. I would give anything to go back and change things. If I hadn’t told Blair how I felt they wouldn’t have fought and she would never have left. ” His eyes burning, he rubbed at them awkwardly.
“Oh, Nate. “I thought you knew. Her leaving had nothing to do with you,” Serena said, touching his shoulder with compassion. “She had been planning that trip to Harold’s for weeks. There is no way anyone could have predicted that the Bass jet would have mechanical problems. “
“I didn’t know.” Relief flooded Nate, lightening his soul. The crippling guilt he had carried for years began to fade. All this time he had thought it was his fault Blair had gotten on the Bass jet that day. “I thought he hated me, that he blamed me. I thought everything was my fault and that is why he had me thrown out at her funeral.”
“Nate, no one blames you. Chuck doesn’t hate you. After the funeral he told me he didn’t blame you for trying. He would’ve done the same in your shoes. What he couldn’t forgive was that when she left they were fighting about you. That’s why he didn’t want you at the funeral. He couldn’t bear to see you.” The knowledge that she could have prevented some of this gnawed at her insides. She had known Nate was pining for Blair, but she had assumed that given lack of encouragement his feelings would quickly ping pong elsewhere. He had yet to prove steadfast devotion to anything or anyone. She knew she couldn’t have prevented Blair dying, but she could have prevented Nate’s foolish declaration. Without it Chuck would never have had reason to shut his best friend out. Together they might have prevented the suicidal downward spiral Chuck was now stuck in. “We need to do something. Maybe rehab or therapy? If he continues like this we will lose him too.”
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but Vanessa works with a lot of addicts over at the clinic and the one thing she’s learned is you have to want help. We can’t help Chuck unless he wants to be helped,” Nate said glumly.
Serena shot him a look of surprise. “Vanessa?”
He stiffened, momentarily abashed. “She’s been a really good friend.” Under Serena’s continued scrutiny his voice wavered. “It’s not like that. I care about her.”
“Right.” Her mocking voice lengthened the succinct word into a sentence
Wary he chose to ignore the current direction the conversation was headed. “I don’t know what we can do about Chuck short of kidnapping and locking him up.”
“Can we do that?” She asked, her voice crisp and clear.
He cast her a sidelong glance of disbelief. “Serena−”
“We have got get him out of that hotel and into rehab. He will never go willingly if there is a chance he’s going to lose his Blair fantasies by getting clean.” Serena normally abhorred manipulating and scheming, often finding herself an innocent participant in Blair’s plans. For the first time in her life she thanked her best friend for the unwilling tutelage she had gained spending hours at her side.
“I don’t even know if it is a substance abuse thing. Maybe it’s some kind of breakdown. When I was there I only saw him drinking.”
“I don’t care if it is a substance abuse issue, nervous breakdown or al three. We are going to fix this.” When it came to her loved ones, Serena’s courage and determination knew no bounds. She knew things would never be the same, but there was a chance if they could reach Chuck they could build something new. “I know this is drastic, but I think we should try and have him declared incompetent. That way we can force him to get help. ”
“Are you serious?” He asked, dumbfounded with shock.
“Perfectly. We can’t let him continue like this. If anything happens to him Blair will come back and haunt us both. “
“She would, wouldn’t she?” Nate shuddered. Thinking about Blair stopping in on his shopping trips, criticizing his choice of clothes, disparaging the amount of time he spent in Brooklyn and critiquing his relationship with Vanessa horrified him. Maybe there was a way to commit Chuck. Especially since he had gone all Howard Hughes on them. There was only one solution. “We have to go to Jack.”
“No! Absolutely not.”
“Serena, think about it. He is Chuck’s only living blood relative. If anyone is going to have any clout in getting him committed it’s going to be Jack.”
“No,” she said, her voice hostile and angry.
Nate countered, “Be reasonable. There’s no way a judge is going declare Chuck incapacitated without a relative’s testimony. Besides he is the only logical choice for guardianship.
As much as she hated it his reasoning almost made sense. She felt dirty even contemplating the idea. “If we turn Chuck over to Jack he will have him locked up forever. I have no doubt there would be some kind of fatal accident soon after his admittance. We might as well hand Jack a loaded gun.”
“I know you hate him, but he isn’t going to risk something like that. He already has what he wants. Chuck gave him power of attorney over his company shares soon after Blair died. As long as Bass Industries continues to makes money Chuck wants nothing to do with it. That isn’t going to change even if he does get better. There are too many memories of Blair there for him to ever go back. “
Serena bit her lip, considering. “You’re probably right about that. Bass Industries was their kingdom.” Her eye lit up with memories. “Who would have thought Blair would have gotten that involved in business management? “
“It wasn’t like her at all to enjoy managing 1000’s of minions and offering opinions on how things should be done was definitely not her forte,” he said sarcastically.
“Right…She got to be Queen B. Except in a businessy, you control billions of dollars kind of way,” she laughed.
Nate took pleasure at the foreign sound that bubbled from Serena’s lips. It had been so long since he had heard that lovely golden noise. Their lovely idyll was quickly over as the real world intervened, their thoughts returning to the situations at hand.
“Ugh,” Serena groaned. “I just hate dealing with Jack. I still can’t believe Chuck hired him back after what happened with my Mom. “
“I think he realized no other hire was going to be as obsessive about the company as Jack was. As unpleasant as it was he did apologize to Lily and they have managed to be cordial over the years. Besides I think he’s changed a lot since then. I heard he got engaged. ”
Serena considered a kinder gentler Jack for a second before dismissing the notion entirely. She knew from experience that leopards don’t change their spots. “Poor girl, I hope she knows what she’s getting into. My Mom may be civil to Jack, but she still hates him. She only tolerates him for Chuck. She doesn’t want him to lose the only blood family he has.
Nate silently agreed, but he realized that Jack was their best hope. Better to deal with the devil you know. “If we really want to help Chuck, Jack is the key. He has the power and clout to get legal guardianship of Chuck. Without his help we are left appealing to Chuck’s sense of self preservation and we know how that will go.”
Heart heavy, the last bonds of resistance were broken. “I hate this, but I just don’t see any other way. Do you think he will ever forgive us?” Her wistful eyes searched his for benediction he was unable to give.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice trailing, fading as the remaining sunlight fled the room.
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A/N: I never planned on continuing this, but I was convinced otherwise by my readers on FF.net. All feedback positive or negative is welcome. :D
Author: Noirreigne
Pairing: Blair/Chuck & Blair/?
Rating: R for language and smut.
Spoilers: None
Summary: To bottomless perdition, there to dwell. Chuck deals with Blair's death, but is she really gone? B/C B/? AU/Future.
( Previous Chapters )
“Did you get in to see him?” Serena asked. Her normal effervescent personality was absent, her face tense and drawn. She gestured towards the seat next to her in an open invitation for Nate to join her on the plush sofa. He paused to admire the lovely picture she made her hair bathed in the sunlight that streamed in from the floor to ceiling picture windows. Her artistically, bordering on the obnoxious, decorated penthouse was uncharacteristically empty and somber. Normally teeming with manufactured gaiety from slumming socialites and various talented émigrés from the local artist’s quarter the place was unrecognizable.
“I did.” Seating himself at her side, shoulders slumped Nate threaded his fingers through his hair, contemplating the right words to describe his meeting with Chuck.
A mixture of relief, fear and hope danced across her features. “I thought you might. You’re the one person I thought he might have neglected to add to his stupid do not admit list. Especially since you haven’t spoken since …” Her voice thickened the words stuck in her throat like flies in honey. Overwhelmed, she waited for the pain to ease before continuing. “I still can’t believe he has a list of people that are banned from his suite.”
“He never bothered to ban me.” Nate’s voice was tinged with bitterness, at odds with the sorrow glinting in his eyes.
“That’s what I was counting on, part of the reason I sent you. Well, that and I hoped that the sight of you would get some reaction out of him. Anything…”
“It got a reaction. Just not the one you probably expected.”
“What do you mean?” Her delicate brows knitted in consternation, her jaw tightening as she readied herself for the worst.
“ Serena, it’s bad. Worse than you expected.” He hesitated to even say the words. “He sees Blair.”
“What?” Her eyes widened in astonishment, her mouth falling open in shock.
He captured her gaze, intent on conveying his seriousness. “He sees Blair.”
“What? Like a ghost?”
“Maybe? I don’t know.“ He was at a loss. He had no clue how to explain what he had witnessed. He would have thought the whole experience a dream if not for the fact he had just come from Chuck’s and he was painfully awake. “He was talking to her like she was right there in the room with us, standing next to me. ”
“Oh, God. What is he on? He actually sees her? I knew things were bad. The last time I saw him he was so weird, there were no sleazy innuendos. No comments on how incest was best or how the family that plays together stays together. What is wrong with him?” Serena paced the room in bursts of staccato movements, her own version of zoo behavior.
“It has to be drugs or alcohol. Maybe some new drug cocktail or maybe a complete mental breakdown? Who knows,” he sighed. “It’s Chuck. It could be anything.”
Serena sat back down, awkwardly clearing her throat as she looked at him warily. “I know this sounds crazy, but do you think maybe she is haunting him?” She asked hopefully, deliberately pretending not to see the look of incredulity and disbelief in Nate’s answering gaze. “They never did find her. Maybe she can’t rest until we find her and bring her home. You know she would hate being buried anywhere but the UES.”
“You can’t be serious.” Nate weighed her with a skeptical squint.
“You’re right. It’s crazy,” she agreed disappointed. “I just would prefer to believe that Chuck isn’t an insane addict and Blair is still hanging around in some crazy kind of after-life. ”
“Me too. “ Nate grasped her hand in comfort.
Laying her head on his shoulder they sat quietly, chasing memories of Blair. Time was lost, the fading sunlight creating wispy shadows that skirted the room, heralding the undeniable approach of dusk.
“We have to do something,” Serena murmured.
“What can we do?” Nate regarded her somberly, his eyes infinitely sad. “He has been a mess since Blair died. If doesn’t matter if it is the drugs or the psychosis that is bringing her back. He won’t want to risk losing her again by getting treatment. He will stay on this path even if it kills him.
“We can’t just sit back and do nothing. When Blair…” Her voice cracked as she kept her encroaching tears at bay. “I knew that I could never be whole again. If we lose Chuck I don’t know how to come back from that.” The tears finally came spilling from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. Clumsily she brushed them away with the palms of her hands.
“He’s a grown man. What are we going to do lock him up?” Nate asked, half joking.
“I don’t know. What exactly did he say when you saw him?”
“Not much. He may have forgotten to blackball me from his suite, but he wasn’t happy to see me. He blames me.” His voice resonated with hurt and remorse.
“He doesn’t blame you,” she said soothingly.
“He should.” He exhaled sharply, shoving his hands in his pockets and slumping into the sofa.
“None of this was your fault. Except maybe the part where you stopped thinking,
she said with a hint of sarcasm. “Honestly Nate, what were you thinking?”
Head bowed, guilt aflame in his chest, he sighed. “I don’t know. It’s stupid, but I never expected they would get married. It never bothered me that they were dating, probably, because I never it would last. You know how they were. Hating each other and swearing it was over one minute, screwing the next.” Serena nodded, a smile hovering as she remembered.
“When they got engaged, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Somewhere In the back of my mind part of me still expected we would find our way back to each other. Our future engagement and marriage was all she ever talked about from the time we were six. It was so entrenched in my head that every time I thought about marriage I pictured her. I always thought we had plenty of time. Then Chuck proposed and I had to at least let her know how I felt. It was only fair.”
Serena looked at him with pity. “Nate, I love you, but you’re an ass.”
“I know. I was stupid. I would give anything to go back and change things. If I hadn’t told Blair how I felt they wouldn’t have fought and she would never have left. ” His eyes burning, he rubbed at them awkwardly.
“Oh, Nate. “I thought you knew. Her leaving had nothing to do with you,” Serena said, touching his shoulder with compassion. “She had been planning that trip to Harold’s for weeks. There is no way anyone could have predicted that the Bass jet would have mechanical problems. “
“I didn’t know.” Relief flooded Nate, lightening his soul. The crippling guilt he had carried for years began to fade. All this time he had thought it was his fault Blair had gotten on the Bass jet that day. “I thought he hated me, that he blamed me. I thought everything was my fault and that is why he had me thrown out at her funeral.”
“Nate, no one blames you. Chuck doesn’t hate you. After the funeral he told me he didn’t blame you for trying. He would’ve done the same in your shoes. What he couldn’t forgive was that when she left they were fighting about you. That’s why he didn’t want you at the funeral. He couldn’t bear to see you.” The knowledge that she could have prevented some of this gnawed at her insides. She had known Nate was pining for Blair, but she had assumed that given lack of encouragement his feelings would quickly ping pong elsewhere. He had yet to prove steadfast devotion to anything or anyone. She knew she couldn’t have prevented Blair dying, but she could have prevented Nate’s foolish declaration. Without it Chuck would never have had reason to shut his best friend out. Together they might have prevented the suicidal downward spiral Chuck was now stuck in. “We need to do something. Maybe rehab or therapy? If he continues like this we will lose him too.”
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but Vanessa works with a lot of addicts over at the clinic and the one thing she’s learned is you have to want help. We can’t help Chuck unless he wants to be helped,” Nate said glumly.
Serena shot him a look of surprise. “Vanessa?”
He stiffened, momentarily abashed. “She’s been a really good friend.” Under Serena’s continued scrutiny his voice wavered. “It’s not like that. I care about her.”
“Right.” Her mocking voice lengthened the succinct word into a sentence
Wary he chose to ignore the current direction the conversation was headed. “I don’t know what we can do about Chuck short of kidnapping and locking him up.”
“Can we do that?” She asked, her voice crisp and clear.
He cast her a sidelong glance of disbelief. “Serena−”
“We have got get him out of that hotel and into rehab. He will never go willingly if there is a chance he’s going to lose his Blair fantasies by getting clean.” Serena normally abhorred manipulating and scheming, often finding herself an innocent participant in Blair’s plans. For the first time in her life she thanked her best friend for the unwilling tutelage she had gained spending hours at her side.
“I don’t even know if it is a substance abuse thing. Maybe it’s some kind of breakdown. When I was there I only saw him drinking.”
“I don’t care if it is a substance abuse issue, nervous breakdown or al three. We are going to fix this.” When it came to her loved ones, Serena’s courage and determination knew no bounds. She knew things would never be the same, but there was a chance if they could reach Chuck they could build something new. “I know this is drastic, but I think we should try and have him declared incompetent. That way we can force him to get help. ”
“Are you serious?” He asked, dumbfounded with shock.
“Perfectly. We can’t let him continue like this. If anything happens to him Blair will come back and haunt us both. “
“She would, wouldn’t she?” Nate shuddered. Thinking about Blair stopping in on his shopping trips, criticizing his choice of clothes, disparaging the amount of time he spent in Brooklyn and critiquing his relationship with Vanessa horrified him. Maybe there was a way to commit Chuck. Especially since he had gone all Howard Hughes on them. There was only one solution. “We have to go to Jack.”
“No! Absolutely not.”
“Serena, think about it. He is Chuck’s only living blood relative. If anyone is going to have any clout in getting him committed it’s going to be Jack.”
“No,” she said, her voice hostile and angry.
Nate countered, “Be reasonable. There’s no way a judge is going declare Chuck incapacitated without a relative’s testimony. Besides he is the only logical choice for guardianship.
As much as she hated it his reasoning almost made sense. She felt dirty even contemplating the idea. “If we turn Chuck over to Jack he will have him locked up forever. I have no doubt there would be some kind of fatal accident soon after his admittance. We might as well hand Jack a loaded gun.”
“I know you hate him, but he isn’t going to risk something like that. He already has what he wants. Chuck gave him power of attorney over his company shares soon after Blair died. As long as Bass Industries continues to makes money Chuck wants nothing to do with it. That isn’t going to change even if he does get better. There are too many memories of Blair there for him to ever go back. “
Serena bit her lip, considering. “You’re probably right about that. Bass Industries was their kingdom.” Her eye lit up with memories. “Who would have thought Blair would have gotten that involved in business management? “
“It wasn’t like her at all to enjoy managing 1000’s of minions and offering opinions on how things should be done was definitely not her forte,” he said sarcastically.
“Right…She got to be Queen B. Except in a businessy, you control billions of dollars kind of way,” she laughed.
Nate took pleasure at the foreign sound that bubbled from Serena’s lips. It had been so long since he had heard that lovely golden noise. Their lovely idyll was quickly over as the real world intervened, their thoughts returning to the situations at hand.
“Ugh,” Serena groaned. “I just hate dealing with Jack. I still can’t believe Chuck hired him back after what happened with my Mom. “
“I think he realized no other hire was going to be as obsessive about the company as Jack was. As unpleasant as it was he did apologize to Lily and they have managed to be cordial over the years. Besides I think he’s changed a lot since then. I heard he got engaged. ”
Serena considered a kinder gentler Jack for a second before dismissing the notion entirely. She knew from experience that leopards don’t change their spots. “Poor girl, I hope she knows what she’s getting into. My Mom may be civil to Jack, but she still hates him. She only tolerates him for Chuck. She doesn’t want him to lose the only blood family he has.
Nate silently agreed, but he realized that Jack was their best hope. Better to deal with the devil you know. “If we really want to help Chuck, Jack is the key. He has the power and clout to get legal guardianship of Chuck. Without his help we are left appealing to Chuck’s sense of self preservation and we know how that will go.”
Heart heavy, the last bonds of resistance were broken. “I hate this, but I just don’t see any other way. Do you think he will ever forgive us?” Her wistful eyes searched his for benediction he was unable to give.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice trailing, fading as the remaining sunlight fled the room.
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A/N: I never planned on continuing this, but I was convinced otherwise by my readers on FF.net. All feedback positive or negative is welcome. :D