Fic: Keep My Heart Somewhere Drugs Don't Go
SPOILERS: 2x13; during Chuck's unaired Thailand Binge
SUMMARY: His father dies and his world implodes so he orders another shot and lifts it to his lips; here's looking at you Waldorf.
DISCLAIMER: Title belong's to Jimmy Eats World.
In conclusion, I would just like to say that I called PhantomBass! way before GG did.
On day one Chuck Bass decides not to be Chuck Bass anymore (or maybe it was decided for him when a drunk decided to run a red light and kill his father), so he gets on a jet and leaves behind the only world he's ever known.
When they reach Venice he stumbles out of the aircraft and tells the pilot that he’ll be right back before whipping out his cell phone and booking three flights to Paris, Vietnam, and Rome. Then he drops his cell phone in the Venetian Gulf.
On the cab ride to the airport he decides to go to Paris, just for the hell of it. Maybe he’d even visit the country side.
As he closes his eyes and leans his head back onto the cool leather exterior of the cab, he imagines Blair flying to Paris, trying to find him but unable to, and, in a fit of rage, decide to give up and go to her father’s house to recuperate only to find a healed (whole, perfect, and worthy) Chuck Bass there waiting for her. She’d smother his face in kisses, and he’d sweep her into his arms, and the music swell and it’d be so cliché but neither one of them would care.
Then the car lurches to a stop, and the cab driver is looking at him with a glare that transcends continents, and Blair and her kisses vanish, leaving only phantom lip prints lingering on his soul.
He tosses a few bills at the driver and lurches over to the bar, orders a tumbler, and lifts it to his lips.
Here’s looking at you Waldorf.
On day two Chuck Bass opens his eyes and realizes that he’s in Vietnam.
Opps.
Over the years he’s accumulated more hangover horror stories than any other living organism on this plant. This definitely made top five, only coming in second to the time he woke up wearing nothing but a shirt with his legs awkwardly stuffed into the arm holes, in the English Channel, and, of course, the time he woke to find Blair Waldorf’s panties next to him on his limo.
For a second, his heart clenches with a second of ohmigodwherethefuckamI panic, as his hand lurches for his pocket to find the phantom cell phone. Then he remembers everything, and he unclenches his jaws and stops looking for things that he’s thrown away.
He closes his eyes and stops hoping, wishing, searching, and lets the numbness wash over him.
Whatever.
On day three she finds him.
There’s a hard rap on the door and someone yells out housekeeping in a Hispanic accent. Before he can walk the six steps from his bed to the door (a difficult feat considering how intoxicated he was) to yell at the maid for disturbing him when he had specifically called the concierge and told them not to send anyone up, the door is thrown open to reveal a livid Blair Waldorf.
She looks even more perfect than when he left her, which is difficult to beat considering that she looked like his personal angeldevilredemption wrapped in silk. This time she’s clad in red, wearing the dress he’d bought her from France (he saw it in the window and had been suddenly bombarded with a thousand fantasies of fucking her in it). Her hair is done to perfection, brown ringlets’ cascading down her shoulders and framing her face, and her lips are painted red and pouty (even though he’s taken on a vow of apathy, he still wants to kiss her.) But her eyes are slightly red rimmed, like his, but she probably hasn’t been doing the same amount of drugs as he since they last saw each other, so he wonders if she misses him.
She stomps in, slams the door behind her, and points her finger accusingly in his face, and he wishes for a brief second that he hadn’t tipped the bellboys to not report any screaming that may or may not hear coming from his room.
“Do you know how long it took me to find you Bass?” She yells, Anna Sui stiletto’s (her travel shoes, because duh Chuck, it’s not like their Chanel) clacking against the marble floor of his suite as she walked around and picked up the discarded clothes from the ground.
He gapes at her, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as he watches her tight pencil skirt stretch across her bottom as she bends down to pick up his favorite ascot.
“What are you doing here Waldorf?” He snaps at her when he finally regains his rhetoric skills; it’s not as angry as he had intended, but considering the amount of drugs and alcohol in his system it’s all he can manage.
“Bringing you home, obviously,” she drawls, and then gasps. “Chuck!” She screeches, more incensed than ever, “is that your original, one-of-a-kind, Armani suit that was hand-picked and tailored by Michael Kors himself?”
He shrugs; maybe it was, or maybe it was the cheap Vietnamese knock-off that came with the high-end cocaine he bought (he wonders if he had accidentally joined a Vietnamese street gang).
“Well,” she says, surveying the now-pristine room (Dorota had taught her well), “that’s everything. We just need to get your signature scarf and then we’re out of here. I’m getting tipsy just from the alcohol diffusing through my skin.” She shudders slightly, tiny little bumps appearing on her exquisitely pale arms.
“Can’t,” Chuck manages to rasp, “I lost it somewhere in Venice, I think.”
Her eyes soften and her posture slumps a bit, like this discouraged her more than finding him chasing down white pills with amber liquid.
He did miss that scarf quite a bit.
“Well, fine. Then we’re going,” she bites out, reaching to pull him with her.
“No.” He’s spent all of his life saying yes, (over)compensating for all of Bart’s negative replies and judging glances, but just this once it feels good to say no, don’t, I don’t want to go, stop, this is all happening too fast, slow down, I didn’t get a chance to fix it, don’t take him away from me yet, please.
He expects her to fight, to yell, to scream, or even to lift a single brow and emulate the late-Bart Bass. Instead, she turns to face him, her brown eyes steely.
“I’m sorry your dad died,” she whispers, like it’s a secret between the two of them, and if someone found out that Blair Waldorf actually mourned the eldest Bass then there’d been world-ending consequences.
It’s his turn to emulate his father (not for the first time, but as always, it escapes Bart’s notice) and lift an eyebrow both skeptically, judgingly, and patronizingly, “You didn’t even know him.”
I didn’t even know him, goes unsaid.
“Yes, but I know you. And I’m sorry that you lost your father. And I’m sorry you lost your mother. But you are not alone, and you are not an orphan. And I’m saying that it’s time to go home to your family,” she states.
“Family? What family? I have no family. I’ve killed them all.” He murmurs the last part, more for himself than for her benefit.
“Now listen here, and listen good,” she seethes, marching towards him and putting her face close to his, “you did not kill your family. Bart died in an accident. A drunk driver killed him. The faulty seat-belts killed him. The screwed up traffic light killed him. You did not kill him. And you did not kill your mother either. Things happen and it’s not the 1600’s anymore; child birth isn’t fatal. Little babies only kill mothers in cheesy horror movies with soundtracks that feature a surprising amount of violins.”
“How’d you know about my mother?” He asks.
“My P.I. told me,” she shrugs sheepishly.
All of a sudden, his vow of apathy is suddenly broken and ohgodheloveshersomuch.
“Besides,” she plows on, “I wasn’t talking about that family. I was talking about this one-you, me, Serena, Nate; Non-Judging Breakfast club, remember? And if you just let me stay by you, I promise I won’t ever go anywhere.”
And that’s all he can hear before he reaches out and grabs her like three nights ago (a lifetime ago), counting on her to hold him up instead of him dragging her down. She’ll never leave, she’ll never leave, she’ll never leave, thrums though his body, leaving a tingly sensation at each of his limbs.
“I love you.” He says and means it.
Suddenly she pulls away.
“Is that-?” She says, eyes widening, “your scarf?”
She reaches over and plucks the red, white, and blue stripped cotton off the couch, which had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
She smiles and ties it around his neck.
“Back where it belongs,” she murmurs.
He knows that she’s not talking about an accessory that’s not needed in the sweaty haze of an Asian country, but Chuck and Blair don’t really do sappy analogies, so instead of giving a long tiring monolog he reaches out for her, pulls him with her onto the bed, and sleeps for the first time.
It’s not until the next day when he wakes up on his plush sheets, does he realize that Blair and his signature scarf are nowhere to be found.
If only he hadn’t hidden himself so well, he murmurs to his scotch.
(If only she was looking, he thinks.)
On the fifth day he swears he’s going crazy.
After phantom-Blair, he’s been hallucinating more and more often.
It’s not much of a surprise really; with the amount of drugs and alcohol in his system it’s to be expected. He understands it, he rationalizes it, he even predicted it, but somehow it’s still kind of creepy.
When he woke up to find a never-really-there Blair Waldorf he’d drunk himself into oblivion. Then that night, when he was lifting the scotch bottle to his lips for the umpteenth time, a flash of blonde hair had caught his eye, and suddenly there Serena was, with her arms akimbo and a slight pout on her overly-glossed pink lips, telling him to save her some.
And on this day, he sees Nate.
His pretty-boy best friend spins around to face him, a basketball tucked under the crook of his right arm, while he lifts an herbal cigarette identical to the one that was between Chuck’s fingers to his mouth for a long drag.
“Yo,” Nate said, blue eyes softening and almost imperceptibly drooping at the corners (a trick Nate had once spent an afternoon trying to teach Chuck, but to no avail) “when are you coming home?”
“Now why would I go back, Nathaniel,” he slurred, “when I have everything I want here?” Chuck gestures to his specter best friend.
Nathaniel brightens and seems to accept Chuck’s excuse at face-value, and Chuck marvels at the fact that even his subconscious is able to keep Nate in character. Blair would approve, Chuck thinks with a smirk. Suddenly, Nate’s smile turns lecherous.
“Hey Chuck,” Nate taunts, his velour sweats replaced with a pale silver tuxedo, “guess who I banged last night?” Nate chuckles and cocks his head to one side, “I finally sealed the deal, and my god, you were right. Sex with Blair is definitely worth all the crap she puts you through to get there.” Nate smirks snidely, “She’s over you, Chuck. She doesn’t want you anymore; why would she want you when she can have me, her prince charming?”
Chuck’s brown eyes hardened, and though he is aware that he’s sitting in his hotel room alone, talking to himself, his blood rushes and he lets out a low snarl trapped within his throat. “You’re acting out of character, Nathaniel. Surely, even in my drug-addled state of mind my hallucinations must be of a better quality than that.”
Nate’s baby blue eyes widened “But Chuck, can’t you just see it? She told you that she loved you and you just left her alone, in New York, with me.” Nathaniel smiles, “She was upset, she needed someone and I was there. I just took what Blair kept throwing at you and you kept throwing back.”
Even as Chuck lunges towards the sandy-haired boy mouthing ‘all night long’ before him, he knew that there would be no impact, no slamming of best friends on hoods of limos, and no yanking of signature scarves or the cool skin and jutting Adam’s apple beneath his hands.
So, he dusts himself off, sits back onto the bar stool and snorts another line, knocking himself out.
On the eighth day he sees Bartholomew Bass.
The last time he saw his father had been on the elevator (it had been a closed casket). Bart’s brown eyes had hardened as he said that he was so very disappointed in his son (yet again) and how he’d thought that they’d made a step forward but instead had taken two back (back where, Chuck had wondered, since they didn’t have much of a starting point). Bart had been wearing a cool grey suit, Prada probably, alligator shoes, and a butter yellow tie that stood out from his white collared shirt. His thinning hair had been parted to the left and slicked down, and his face had flushed red as he surveyed his son wearing an ostentatious get-up, brown hair greased to the right, and nervously fingering his violet ascot.
The last time he’d heard his father was on the phone, as he called his father to tell him that the next person to destroy would be Lilly Van der Woodsen (offering to help in the destruction) and telling him to come quickly (to save his family, please Daddy?). Bart’s voice had been clipped as he told his son that he was coming, to stay out of his business until further notice, and to make sure that his wife didn’t leave. The phone call had lasted all of fifty-six seconds.
The last time he’d smelt his father was the day before the funeral. He’d been rummaging around in the pantry looking for whiskey (he’d finished the scotch) when he was overpowered by the musk of his father. He wasn’t sure how Bart’s sent could have been so strong in a certain corner of a cupboard containing all the Bass wines, but suddenly all he could think of was when Bart had taken him to the zoo when he was six and a tiger had snarled at Chuck, only to have Bart pull him into his trench-coat and bare his own human teeth at the feline. The last time Chuck had smelled his father he hadn’t stayed and basked in the feeling of Bart’s lingering protection, instead he had marched out the door to find the nearest bar to get some proper scotch.
The last time he’d touched his father, was two months ago, when Bart and Lilly had come home from their honeymoon. Chuck had been standing before their doorway, wearing his favorite shark sweater with a pale purple scarf tied around his neck, awaiting his father’s return. He hadn’t seen his father in two months (the honeymoon had been waylaid by several business meetings with potential clients in the Southeast), and though Chuck had spent most of the summer rolling around with half naked girls and bathing in gin, he remembered enough of his pre-Tuscany life to know that Bart had appeared to be proud of him before he left. The elevator dinged, the heavy doors parted, and Chuck had stepped forward to meet his, god-forbid (thank you God), family. Bart had been on the phone, eyes narrowed, barking orders-in other words, too busy to acknowledge the fact that somewhere along the line he’d impregnated his wife and this unfortunate disaster, otherwise known as a baby. He’d clapped Chuck on the back of his shoulder for two seconds (worth twenty six dollars, Chuck knows, but he doesn’t think his father would pause for him even if Chuck did pay him), furrowed his brows at Chuck’s shirt (which coincidentally Chuck discovered was too tight for him the next day), and moved on.
Now, his father lounges before him; his eyes are still hard and his face is still expressionless, but his legs are crossed and he’s swirling a glass of Chuck’s favorite amber liquid around and around.
“Charles,” his father says, tilting his lips up in what Chuck doesn’t dare to classify as a smile.
“Father,” Chuck gulps.
“How are you?” Bart asks, smiling for real this time, eyes crinkling at the corners with hidden folds of amusement; Chuck Bass’s breath is taken away.
“Oh come now Charles, don’t act so surprised. You know that I’m not really here, and you know that it’s just the toxins flowing through your bloodstream that’s making you see me and not some mental illness or brain tumor. So, how are you?”
“Fine,” he stutters like he did when he was Charlie the Bass Orphan who wanted his Daddy home because despite what Nanny Karen said there were some monsters that she couldn’t chase away and not Chuck Bass the synonym of evil and the epitome of the Upper East Side.
His father laughs (something that Charlie dreams about and Chuck apparently hallucinates) and gives the empty alcohol bottles and rumpled sheets a pointed look, but says, “That’s good.”
“You know Chuck,” his father suddenly says, “I’m proud of you.”
Chuck Bass’s heart grows three sizes larger and if this were a Christmas story he’d get the girl, deliver the toys, and end up sitting with his friends and family eating turkey and singing Who-songs. But it isn’t; Chuck’s been waiting his whole life to hear this but it doesn’t count now because Chuck doesn’t deserve it and his father doesn’t mean it because how could he? He’s dead.
His father is dead.
Chuck Bass’s heart grows three sizes, but that only means that it hurts three times as much.
So he sneers; thin lips pressed against one another, eyes darkening, face turning green because heart or no heart, he’s still the fucking Grinch (it’s all he can bear to be).
“Liar,” he snarls, unable to look at his father, even if he’s just a figment of his own imagination.
Bart Bass smiles.
When Chuck Bass looks back up his father is gone.
(Charlie’s mouth trembles.)
On day nine he wakes up and Bart isn’t there.
He makes a call to the concierge and orders a bottle of single malt scotch. When he drinks half the bottle, Bart still isn’t there.
He smokes three home-made herbal cigarettes (Bart isn’t there) and cures his munches (Bart) with Cheetos but (isn’t) they tickle his throat so he chases them (there) down with the rest of the bottle.
Briefly he wonders if he’s dead.
(But Bart still isn’t there, so probably not.)
On day ten he wakes up and Bart is there.
(“I’m just here because you want me to be.”
I’ve always wanted you to be.
Steel eyes glimmer, “I know.”)
On day eleven he wakes up and Bart isn’t there but he shows up after dinner (special Thailand smoke out of a pot that’s much longer than the one his cook uses at home, but he’ Chuck Bass and length is kind of his thing).
“Hey,” he says, like it’s no big deal that his dead father is talking to him.
Bart nods, smiling still, “you need something to eat. I’m an image sent to you from your subconscious but even the hidden part of your brain is hungry-and none of that washing down a meal with half a gallon of vodka stuff; you need water.”
Chuck scowls and pouts and complains about it ruining his high, but in the end he picks up the phone and dials for room service.
(Bart Bass making sure Chuck ate his green vegetables never happens, but this does, and it’s almost enough.)
“Hey,” Chuck says between bites, “you smile a lot more now. Why is that?”
Because Chuck, that’s how you’ve always wanted to see me.
Bart Bass shrugs, “I guess it’s just one of the perks of being dead.” Bart then throws back his shoulders and laughs, not like steel rods collapsing from a building that had cut corners because that’s how all businesses begin, but like play dates in the park and read-me-another-story-please.
Even though Charlie loves (desperately needs) his father, Chuck Bass hates (desperately needs) his father, but Chuck Bass finds himself laughing anyway.
On day twelve Chuck Bass wakes up in Tuscany.
He opens his eyes and there’s a pale, slender arm strewn across his waist and for half a heartbeat he wonders who the hell is lying next to him. But then a breeze escapes into the room from an open window and causes the curtains to sway. Warm caramel sunshine melts through the windows and reveals a familiar pattern of freckles on the girl’s back and catches in her dark chocolate curls. He leans in and he can smell jasmine and rose and pheromones (what she always smells like before she drenches herself in the almost-as-seductive Chanel No. 5), and he remembers (is allowed to forget).
They eat breakfast in bed; she orders an apple so he orders the King-Pin Breakfast Deal and convinces her to eat half of his omelet and one of his hash-browns. She pouts, jutting lips red from exertion rather than rogue, and tells him that she’ already got an apple. He smirks and kisses her mouth open, before quickly sliding in a bite of potato. She hates fats, lipids, and other nasty things that she just knows will end up taking permanent residence around her abdomen, but she is hungry, so she reaches out for a fork, but stops herself mid-way, deciding to make him fight for it (she likes the attention). Whatever, he grins, he’s got no problem feeding her this way.
They walk around on the marbled streets. She’s got one arm looped around his while the other is perched atop her sunhat in a vain attempt to keep it from flying off. Her head is tilted back as she shakes with laughter, her hair, now tinted gold from all of the sun, glimmering. He’s guides her forward to a vineyard, smug smirk fixed on his face, strutting around because Chuck Bass has never been one for modesty, and the fact that this girl wants to be seen with him is like David knocking out goliath with a penny instead of a pebble (a feat that every girl of the Met Steps would revel at).
He’s feeds her éclairs, and she’s shaking her head, saying that she can’t eat anymore because did he not know that each one of those puffs of sin were filled with the same amount of calories that she consumed in an entire meal? ‘I’ve had six of those Chuck,’ she drawls, rolling her eyes at his Y-chromosome stupidity. But he just grins, and tells her that he can think of ways for her to work off the calories. She scoffs, turning beet red, but eats the éclair anyways (and several more off of him).
They lounge by the pool, hands intertwined, and she looks at him; really, really looks at him like she can see every single bad thought, uncertain feeling, and how he completely, utterly, ridiculously needs her. ‘I’m glad you’re here Chuck’ she says quietly, before slipping her Gucci sunglasses back on like nothing happened (like she didn’t just make his world implode.)
Then suddenly, he opens his eyes, and wakes up lying in a pool of his own vomit, which, in spite of everything (his father’s death, pushing away the girl he loves, ignoring his best friend, and having not seen his family and friends for a lifetime) may be the worst thing to happen to him yet.
“Morning Sunshine,” his father laughs, nudging Chuck’s stomach with his toe.
“Dad?” Chuck croaks, because wasn’t his dad supposed to be on some tropical island with a scantily clad Lilly Bass? Or wasn’t he supposed to be underground, rotting away in his million dollar suit, inside of the rich mahogany casket?
“It’s time to go home Chuck.” Bart Bass says, still smiling.
Chuck shakes his head furiously, because he’s not ready. It’s only been two weeks since his father died and he’s just not fucking ready. He need more pot, more booze, more time.
“Chuck, I’m proud of you.”
Chuck doesn’t believe him, (I’mgladyou’rehereChuck) but he likes to think that one day he will.
“Okay,” he sighs and begins packing.
On day thirteen Chuck Bass boards a plane.
His plane, to be more precise. There is no way that he would have been able to leave the country in his current state of intoxication had he done it legally; even as it is, the pilot looks a little hesitant.
But he owns the majority shares of Bass Industry now, which pretty much meant that he owned this man’s soul as well as the plane he’s piloting, so the trip continues.
Chuck closes his eyes and ignores the giggles around him.
They sent Jack to come get him, or at least he thinks it’s Jack because of the ‘Hey Nephew Chuck, my partner in debauchery!’ comment, but he could be wrong because even with all of the chemicals passing out of Chuck now (detox fucking hurts) he knows that Jack’s not really a wise choice for retrieving strung-out teenagers.
Jack disappears into the bathroom with a flight attendant mid-trip and Chuck Bass is finally left in peace.
He closes his eyes and dreams, but not really.
With his eyes shut one name keeps pounding through his head with each beat of his heart (her name is etched into his veins), but this time it’s more solid than his hallucinations or vocational fantasies, it’s more than his subconscious trying to show him what he wanted to see-this time she is every part of his mind.
He falls asleep to the beat of her name.
On day fourteen Chuck Bass sets his feet back onto Upper East Side soil.
She’s standing there on the wide lot of concrete, a black beret in her hair and her nine inch Jimmy Choo’s to show that she means business.
Her eyes are red-rimmed, her back is stiff and her luscious red lips are pulled thin. Then his plane lands and he steps out reeking of Jack’s alcohol and Thailand’s bongs, and instantaneously her spine melts, fresh tears erupt in her eyes, and she’s flying at towards him and gathering him in her arms.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” she cries, hands fisted around his shirt, pulling him closer.
I love you too Waldorf. It’s not the right time, there are no scarves, no cleaning, no secret spy missions that allow her to follow him to Thailand, so he doesn’t say it; he just feels it.
Slowly Chuck Bass moves his arms upward and wraps them around her petite body. He’s not sure if she’s real, but then he feels it. The small rise and fall ba-dump, ba-dump of her heart, and it’s the most confusing (amazingwonderfulmagical) thing in the world. It doesn’t matter that he’s still got hallucinogens in his system, because he knows for sure; she’s real.
Charlie cries, Chuck crumples, and Bart Bass smiles.
On day fourteen Chuck Bass comes home (and it feels like it.)
End.