FIC: Forty-Eight
Author's note: Prompted by choco_dreamer: Blair wonders if Chuck's workaholic ways will mean that she'll be forced to take the back seat to his work when it comes to Chuck's priorities.
Hope you like, bb! Ended up growing much bigger than a drabble I'm afraid!
You’ve turned into someone I just can’t recognise and it scares me, Chuck. I don’t know how much longer I can pretend there’s nothing wrong because there is, and I’m terrified of where we’re heading. Again.
FORTY-EIGHT
I see the signs now, all the time, that you’re not dead, you’re sleeping.
- Bloc Party, Signs
Dear Chuck,
We need to talk. I don’t know how it happened, or why. Going from a summer of pure bliss to this strange cold place where you’ve become someone I don’t think I know anymore. How did we get here? How did we end up barely even seeing each other anymore? We live together but I might as well be renting the place from a stranger for all the time you spend here.
What have I done? Have I changed? Why are you running away from me again? Tell me, Chuck, don’t just shut me out. Let me in. I miss you, the old you who would confide your fears and failures and successes to me. It didn’t used to shame you to only be human. Now we don’t even talk anymore, and look what I’m reduced to doing to communicate.
You’ve turned into someone I just can’t recognise and it scares me, Chuck. I don’t know how much longer I can pretend there’s nothing wrong because there is, and I’m terrified of where we’re heading. Again.
Let. Me. In. Please, Chuck. I want you. But you need to be the one to come and find me.
Forty-eight hours, Chuck.
I love you,
Blair.
#
Blair watched from the shadows of their bedroom which had a view of the entrance hall as Chuck’s usually tense-straight shoulders slumped infinitesimally while he read her ultimatum. Then she quietly retreated, intending to wait… as long as she could take it.
She’d discovered something about herself in the past two years: she was made of tough stuff. She could take it, as long as he showed signs.
He joined her close to an hour later, making little noise as he undressed, though he probably knew she was only faking sleep. Turned away, she felt his gaze touch her too often to keep count. Holding her breath, she then felt the bed dip as he slid in, the sheets whispering against his pajamas, but he didn’t reach to tuck her into him like he used to do. His distinctive smell seemed to taunt her. Still she felt him eyes on her. Felt the mere inches separating them. Tension radiated under the sheets, until she felt locked in it.
#
Blair awoke hours later, in the darkness still, to an arm thrown loosely around her and a warm breath fanning her neck. Smiling tremulously, Blair laced her fingers through Chuck’s.
Only at night…
#
The next morning he was gone, a breakfast tray waiting for her in the dining room next to a note in his scratchy handwriting on Bass Industries’ embossed letterhead.
Forty when you wake up.
Blair read it only once. She had to focus on her Marketing test later that day.
#
She got home that evening to the sight of their empty suite, again. Somehow she’d hoped for… difference. Something to change the lonely predictability that had begun to inhabit their communal life.
Blair lowered herself to a highback chair in the dining room. She’d be eating alone, again.
Maybe it had been a bad idea to begin with, the communal life.
They’d been giddy from the sweetness of their first entirely shared summer, and moving into the Palace in a new suite had seemed like the next logical step. After all, they were in a good place with each other. Strong together. They’d surmounted seemingly unsurmountable obstacles - from a handful of difficult words to making better memories in places almost but never visited before. It had seemed they were invincible.
Returning home after that long trip, they had still been that for a while. But the months had ticked by and Chuck had had to master a lifetime of his father’s knack for business. At first, he’d taken it all and come home to find her. To talk. She’d help him forget his inadequacy; he’d help her with her own problems at school. Just take away the heavy weight of tension from each other’s shoulders. It had been so easy.
Progressively, though, he’d started being home less and less. I need to run this company, Blair. On my own. And he now was. Except it was robbing him, just like it had his father. And it was robbing her, too.
The front door opened at that moment, and Blair jerked up, whirling around the face the intruder.
#
Chuck froze, briefcase in hand a sober overcoat over his bent arm. His eyes widened at her sight, and then his jaw worked. “Hi,” he greeted quietly, almost but of course not shyly.
“Hi,” Blair repeated after another moment of incredulity. What are you doing here so early? she wanted to ask.
“I’ll be in my office,” Chuck announced before moving right in the direction of the spare bedroom-turned-office he’d not used in months.
Small wonder: he didn’t close the door behind him.
#
They didn’t talk as they ate, but Chuck nevertheless passed Blair the salt and pepper exactly when she would have asked, and Blair left her asparagus for him to finish when she was done.
The little things, just like old times.
#
He returned to his office afterward to dictate a report that his secretary would type the next day. He left the door open, again. She heard his voice, muffled by distance, and it was a comforting.
Blair decided the moment was as good as any to start that Tartuffe analysis she needed to hand in in a few weeks. She worked from the dining room table, in plain view of Chuck’s office.
She caught him looking over a few times, a tender expression on his face. Sleeping butterflies stirred in her belly.
The hours still ticked by, though. Those butterflies hurt.
#
When Blair emerged later on, she was surprised to find Chuck gone from his orange-and-green office - for motivation, he’d explained once. Light spilled from their bedroom, though, and as she moved closer, she glimpsed Chuck in the process of stripping off his work clothes.
Chuck’s body was mostly harsh angles, but he always moved sinuously. Always had, even as a gangly teenager who’d just sprouted into his body. To watch him undress was always a feast for the eyes, not just because of the anticipation, but also because of the way he simply moved.
Ever-tense shoulders appeared, pale in the darkness, but no paler than the crisp white shirt he discarded. Lean muscles moved under his skin. Blair heard his belt buckle clang, and then the whoosh of it slipping out of belt hoops. He discarded the object on top of his shirt and tie. And then he slid his zipper down, and tugged his pants off.
Chuck wasn’t muscular, he didn’t work out, and he didn’t have a classically god-like, completely slim body, but she’d never asked him for perfection either, and he was more than acceptable as is. She’d understood that a little late. Watching him, she actually missed him again, missed being with him, alone, locked in their own little world. She missed making love, sure, but the intimacy of simply holding each other especially. Consciously.
He must have sensed her, because he glanced back suddenly, dark eyes flaring when he saw her.
“Hi,” she offered quietly from the jamb, drinking in the sight of him naked and darkly handsome in the dim light.
Dirty offers could have come, but no one was in the mood tonight. Chuck nodded his head in silent, solemn greeting, and then he looked at his wristwatch inquiringly.
She was usually in bed by this time, he was trying to say. As though her body belatedly remembered, she yawned, smiled wanly, and then walked in fully. Chuck watched her a moment as she headed into the adjoined bathroom for her nightly ritual, and then stepped into his striped pajama pants. Then she saw him debate the shirt. As she came out, in the process of undoing the buttons on her blouse, he obviously chose not to wear it, and instead came up to her, slowly pushing her smaller hands away to set to the task himself. He had more trouble than her with them, but he didn’t seem to care, and neither did she… She got to see his face up close for the first rare time in a while. Calm but visibly troubled.
“Thank you,” she whispered at his fingers before they moved south to tug her zipper and skirt down. Blair glanced up, meeting Chuck’s intense gaze as his hands lingered a fraction. Then they were gone, and he reached into a drawer to silently pull it on for her. “Thank you," she repeated, and they were headed for bed together in their own disconnected-connected way.
Blair slid in first, Chuck soon following and settling behind her. Barely even touching her skin with featherlight strokes, she almost didn’t hear him. “Twenty-five,” he murmured gravely.
He was still counting, but her heart still hurt.
#
Blair woke to heat slowly slipping away from her as the sun rose and her alarm suddenly sounded.
He’d actually slept a sane man’s hours.
#
His hands were warm, uncertain, gliding along with the soap bar on her body. Dark hair plastered to his face and his expression earnest as she’d never seen it before, he looked vulnerable, not invincible.
He didn’t try a thing, and his eyes told her all that she wanted to hear, and more.
All that she needed to hear.
A wan smile ghosted over his lips a fleeting moment as though he could hear her thoughts, and he brushed away a wet lock from her face. “Sixteen,” he murmured softly before shutting the tap and stepping out.
Blair shivered.
#
The day passed at snail’s damned pace, Blair’s insides twitching and twisting at every moment, leaving her skin feeling tight and tender. She cursed herself for not focusing on her French teacher’s drone.
Class was over before it even really began for her. Thank God for fluency and a castle in France.
But she didn’t want to go home. Not yet.
#
And yet she did because, as terrified as she was, Blair’s anxiousness won her over and she simply couldn’t help herself.
He wasn’t there, it was a little past midday, but still she wondered…
No. No expectation, no disappointments. Just him and her and they’d figure it out. Or not. But it would be done in the moment.
They did their best work improvised.
#
There were flowers waiting for her. Hydrangeas, her favourites, she discovered as she tored the loosely wrapped gift paper apart. Only two, but they were enough.
Someone had artfully twisted the long stems together and pinned to the string was a note that read, “I’m not saying sorry with flowers. They’re just for you, from me.”
The dry flower arrangement on the dinner table didn’t stand a chance. Blair commandeered its now vacant vase. Water, she needed water. Ironically.
#
Room service arrived before she had even had time to call. They even brought candles, unlit, and didn’t light them at all. Laid out dinner where Chuck and Blair had usually eaten before… all that. Heavenly smells rose from the covered plates.
“He says to wait,” one of them said before leaving.
Blair sat and waited, (not) hoping.
#
Ten minutes later, he appeared, shoving out of his coat and rubbers. His hair gleamed with melted snow. As he straightened again, Chuck locked eyes with Blair, took a deep bracing breath, and then released it. “Hi.”
Blair nodded her head, suddenly shy.
Chuck slowly approached, as though unsure of his reception, and then he was right in front of her. Lowering himself before her, he took her hand in his, stroked her laxing knuckles, and then brushed his lips over hers. “Four hours,” he reminded her as he drew back.
“Will you make me wait that long?” she asked only half-bruisingly, searching his eyes and not hoping.
Ducking his head, he reminded her suddenly of the child he used to be, so long ago, when scolding turned him into a lonely boy. It was before he learned there would be no pleasing his idol. Presently Chuck shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said hollowly.
Blair stayed silent, knowing how much it cost him to say those words.
“I know I screwed up,” he muttered, adding, “I got scared. I’m not half the businessman Bart was and they all-”
“Expect miracles out of an eighteen year-old,” Blair grated fiercely between clenched teeth.
“I wanted a miracle,” he said softly, not denying her explanation. “But I only… I thought focusing on the company would help.” He shook his head again, silently berating himself. “It didn’t. I’m getting better but your letter - that’s when I realised.” As he looked up, Blair saw only naked supplication in his slashed eyes. “I’m the one who changed, Blair, not you. it’s not you.”
As the last word left his mouth, Blair pulled his head up, gently capturing his mouth. “Don’t run away again. Or take me with you when you do. Okay?”
Heaving a great breath, Chuck rose to his feet, still holding on to her hand, which he squeezed before letting go and sitting in his highback chair. “Or you’ll give me only a day to man up?” he asked quietly, some humour piercing his gravity.
Blair smirked privately, uncovering her still steaming plate. “Maybe less.”
“Forty-eight was just perfect,” he replied a tad anxiously.
“You still have four hours, you know,” Blair pointed out, quirking a brow.
He didn’t reply, but his eyes softened and yet crinkled at once.