FIC: Well-Bred People
Author's note: This one-shot fits loosely into the Behold Man storyline, but takes place perhaps a year or two after the events of These Little Horrors, These Little Hours. Enjoy!
Well-Bred People: It is said that well-bred people don’t create or cultivate rumours. It is beneath them. They also certainly don’t talk behind each other’s backs. #3 in the Behold Man series.
Behold Man: The lengths people will go to... A series exploring the darker sides of Man and the secrets revealed by our persistent pair.
WELL-BRED PEOPLE
Another reception, another glass of wine, another endless hour of polite but ultimately pointless chatter. The hostess, a woman well into her seventies in need of a reminder that she wasn’t at her prime and never would be again despite all her time spent under the scalpel, flitted from group to group with her balding bore of a husband. Chamber music strains provided background noise for conversation that was even blander than its sound. The alcohol in her glass was a lot fruitier than she preferred - dry and coarse had the bite she liked.
Most of all, her boyfriend was… somewhere around but definitely not here.
Blair downed the rest of her glass and leaned back against the wall, looking around at the small sea of creams and other dull peachy colours in which she clashed with her bright turquoise silk chiffon dress that cinched tightly at the breasts and then flowed out freely down in a classic Empire style. Chuck was probably around somewhere having more fun than her.
Wet bar? No. Young attendees? Blair snorted. There were none but them.
Well, she had noticed old Mrs. Brenshaw taking an unnatural liking to Chuck the moment she laid eyes on him - you look just like Horace did, dear, oh you must be a charmer! And the “charmer” had been missing since.
Oh, he would pay dearly. Should count himself lucky that jealousy had nothing to do with her execrable mood. Boredom drove her up the walls on the best of days. She supposed it was currently compounded by the facts that, one: Chuck had indeed pulled a disappearing act on her; and two: he hadn’t bothered to drag her along. He should also count himself lucky that she was well aware that this was his night to shine.
It had been his idea to fund the construction of a permanent residence for Manhattan’s oldest, finest and… sickest. The crème de la old crème refused to mingle with commoners, and yet they insisted on visiting each other day after day in their gigantic mansions, thus causing them undue strain. The Perennial finally completed, it allowed for comfort, nearness, and the finest care right in one place. It had taken some convincing of the sourest and more conventional souls, but one by one old friends had taken the leap and moved into the privately owned establishment.
Chuck Bass was a mastermind, and they were all at his feet on this night. As they should be.
“Missed me?” a voice suddenly murmured at her ear before Chuck’s hand preceded his body against her side.
Blair covered his hand but kept her eyes trained to the matrons and old retired businessmen. Some brandished canes, others needed hearing aids. Some shook from Parkinson’s. Others suffered from Alzheimer’s. The hostess’s fingers were something to behold. But all were happy. And now so was she. “Mmhm.”
“Good.” And that was that. End of the line, because other words were reserved for more private moments than this. However, he didn’t mind adding, against her cheek, “I’ll make it up to you,” because that didn’t require putting his private self out so much. Though he was getting better at that.
“You know,” Chuck said after a moment, and Blair felt his body shaking in concealed laughter against hers, “Mrs. Brenshaw was rather delightful.”
“Is that so.”
“Mm. Biggest gossip you’ll ever meet. I’ll bet she was quite the Gossip Girl in her days…”
Blair cocked an eyebrow. If he thought he was getting off easy… “You’re telling me this,” she murmured back, “why?”
Chuck’s lips touched her temple. “I can tell you need a pick-me-up. Nothing like being privy to precious information.”
Blair’s frozen, polite smile slowly transformed. “Too bad your database is back home.”
Eyebrows raising in interest, Chuck turned her chin to face her at last. “Home?” he repeated with a fervent stress on the banal word.
Blair’s smirk merely deepened. “Home away from school,” she clarified with a quick wink and a squeeze on his hand before nudging him with her hip. “So what did that gossip monger tell you?”
“Secrets ranging from the mundane to the scandalous.”
“By our standards?” Somehow she doubted their viability in their records.
“By our standards,” Chuck agreed solemnly.
Blair pulled a face. “Where’s a computer when you need one?”
“There’s probably an antique typewriter stored around here somewhere. In a dark room with no cameras…” One of his hands snaked to the skirt of her dress, flirting with the silk folds.
Dark eyes locked. “Tempting,” Blair whispered as heat charged between them. “But later. For now, entertain me.”
Chuck stared back blandly as if she were mentally challenged.
Blair rolled her eyes at the meaning behind the look but refused to address her boyfriend’s sharp wicked wit. “What did Mrs. Brenshaw say?”
It is said that well-bred people don’t create or cultivate rumours. It is beneath them. They also certainly don’t talk behind each other’s backs or allude to things “best kept in the intimacy of the bedroom” in the company of other guests. It is considered ill-mannered and loutish.
Honestly, who gave you those false ideas?
The fun has only just begun when Chuck talks about a woman who most possibly broke her hip bone playing seductress with a married man rather than the ready-made excuse of “I fell out of bed”.
When he moves to political plots that changed the course of New York and American history, Blair’s hooked onto every word coming out of her Bass.
“Oh by the way, I recorded everything she was saying.”
Well-bred people are opportunist sharks. Don’t let their gentle ways fool you.
“And here I thought you were happy to see me.”
“Well, that too.”
“Brilliant.”
“Wanna praise me later, too?”
“Do I really have to?”
Well-bred people generally whisper the things Chuck says in private, but then Chuck was not bred.