Chapter Text
So fuck you
And all we’ve been through
I said leave it, leave it, leave it
It’s nothing to you
And if you hate me
Then hate me so good that you can let me out
Let me out of this hell when you’re around
(D. Rice)
Blair and Chuck once faced each other in a spaghetti eating contest when she was eight and he was nine. She doesn't remember who had challenged who, but they sat in front of a mountain of pasta with cream sauce and cheese that his Italian nanny had made for them. Nate and Serena and a few other children, whose names and faces Blair doesn't remember, and who turned out to be inconsequential for the course of the rest of her life, had gathered around them, ready to cheer on their champion of choice. Serena signaled the start with a whistle and then Blair and Chuck started stuffing themselves with noodles, almost choking on food in an attempt to empty their respective plates first. Blair, whose ability to force an insane amount of food down her throat showed potential long before it became attached to her self-esteem issues, won, and of all the things she forgot over the years, this is what she remembers: his face when he looked at her, knowing he lost, and the feeling of having beaten him: a mixture of triumph and nausea and fear of her mother's reaction. Over the years, the things they fight about change, but the feeling she gets whenever she wins is still the same: exhilaration and nausea and the distinct feeling that she should be in trouble for what she just did.
…
It goes like this: The first seven years are smooth-sailing. Marriage, they win the trial, a house, Henry, another house. Their businesses go perfectly, Chuck is expanding and investing again and again and again, and her designs sell better than anything her mother has ever made (and she enjoys the envy in her eyes that has been replaced by what used to be disdain, once upon a time).
To tell the truth: It all goes too well. They are Chuck and Blair, and of course they don’t live happily ever after. It’s just not their style.
…
It’s subtle at first. Him, listening with only one ear to her talking about spicy office gossip, and Jenny leaving to create her own label in Berlin. Her, criticizing his choice of the restaurant and the color of his shoes, even though the restaurant is the Chuck Bass version of okay and even though she doesn’t care about the shoes, really; she always knew he had this thing for purple. Him, needing ten seconds too long to look up from his notes and see her and what she brought from Chanel. She doesn’t tell anyone about it, because she doesn’t know anyone who wouldn’t call her crazy. In fact, she knows she’s crazy. It’s just that it took them such a way to come and they’ve never lasted so long before, but she doesn’t trust them enough to believe in forever. It has to end in a catastrophe, simply because that is the way things always go for them.
Because she is so afraid of them breaking apart, the finale comes sooner than necessary.
…
Arguing with him was always easy. It has always been about power with them, and because there is no other enemy available at the moment, they have to triumph over each other. Soon it’s not a game any longer and soon the yelling gets louder and the fights get messier and making up at night is less gentle and more desperate than it used to be. It is amazing how he can still hurt her after all these years, she thinks, and it’s amazing that hurting him feels exactly like it used to, this intoxicating mixture of triumph and anger and sadness and self-loathing and gratification.
Henry presses his hands to his ears when they scream and Dorota looks at her with these sad, understanding eyes and sometimes she just wants to fire them all, except she can’t because they are her family (well, Dorota is not, technically, and Blair really could fire her, but she’s family, too). She exclusively wears long sleeves to cover the hand shaped bruises on her forearms, and she catches him crying in the bathroom after she compared him to his father. They bite and kick and scheme and scream and scream until they are raw with it, until Blair feels the urge to cry every time she comes home and he starts sleeping in his office. They fight until they can’t fight anymore, and then he asks her for a divorce.
“I don’t know what you want, Blair”, he says quietly, when they sit next to each other without touching on the beautiful vintage couch and stare into the dark, unlit fireplace. “I don’t even know what I want. I always thought it was you, but maybe we’re just… not brave enough.” It sounds forced, hollow, like the black and white movies she used to love so much.
“I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted”, she answers quietly, not looking him in the eye. “I do love you. But I can’t keep being this… version of myself.” God, she thinks, they should write a soap opera. All of this sounds like a line from a Celine Dion song.
…
The night after the papers are signed, Henry is staying with Dorota and Blair and Serena are sitting outside of New York under the freaking Brooklyn Bridge. It is early June and too warm despite the late hour. They are looking at the skyline and for a while, it is quiet. Blair settles her head on her friend's shoulder and suppresses a sob.
“It is my fault, you know. It really is this time. It never was before, not completely. God, Serena, we had already managed to get married!”
Her friend strokes her head and mumbles calming words that don’t make any sense at all. Blair smells Serena’s perfume, the familiar fragrance of coconut and vanilla Serena has worn ever since she was fifteen. It's childhood all over again. That doesn’t help, because Chuck was part of her childhood, too.
“I know that this is bad timing”, Serena says, and she sounds apologetic, “but I wanted you to know it first, and I need to tell it Dan pretty soon.” She gulps. “I’m pregnant.” Blair looks at her and she’s grateful her body switches to auto mode and she smiles and hugs her friend like she should, when all she can think about is that this is not fair, because even on the day of her divorce Serena manages to have the more exciting news.
…
Henry isn’t a problem. After all, they both live in New York. She and Chuck were smart this time, separating at a point where they do not yet hate each other so much that parties are awkward. Blair is so proud of her son, seeing this precocious child grow up, because he is both of them in one person and it is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. If he is to be the only thing that will remain of her and Chuck, then she is completely and utterly satisfied with it. He is brilliant, and he is happy, and they both work hard to keep it that way.
…
Of course, they’d have other partners every so often. She dates big men, important men, who are rich and free and fall in love with her once in a while, but they all can’t really keep her, can’t deal with the fact that she is an equal to anything they can ever even think of. She isn’t Serena, she isn’t Lily, she isn’t even her mother. She is Blair fucking Waldorf, and it’s just too much for them to handle.
Blair knows that he does not hold back, either. Various articles in various magazines sing songs of his oh-so-glorious adventures.
He brings Henry home with her, one Sunday night, after they both watched Serena’s and Dan’s little girl be christened. Henry had been excited about not being the little one anymore, and run around in a suit and bow tie, trying to get baby Rosie to draw something.
Now Chuck, in an adult version of the same suit, stands before her and she pours them both a glass of whiskey.
“Read about you in the ‘Candid’ lately”, she says. “Dating pop stars now, are we.”
He smiles and says nothing for a while, and it angers her more than she cares to admit. “Not really your business anymore, honey, is it?”
He’s right, and it’s frustrating. “I’m just saying”, she answers and manages to sound indifferent, “if you stick to the upper-class women, you wouldn’t need to worry about STDs as much.”
He flashes her a wide smile. “You're delusional if you truly think that. Also, had I just stuck to upper class women, I’d have died of boredom before I turned seventeen.”
Blair can’t help but laugh, and he looks at her from the side. “What about you, anyway? Did you get rid of the banker before he could propose? Smart.”
“Henry didn’t like him”, she sounds defensive and he chuckles.
“Oh, stop it. Henry will never like anyone but me.”
It is true, and she doesn’t know how to answer that. “I think it’s good”, she says finally. “We are never as good as we are on our own. They all just slow us down, don’t you think?”
“We don’t slow each other down”, he says, and she feels that something overly dramatic is going to follow, because that’d be just like him. “We speed each other up until we crash.”
And there it is. “Great thing that we aren’t together, then” she offers with more whiskey.
“True”, he says, and their glasses clink.
It is amazing that no matter if they are lovers or enemies or history, they always manage to stay friends.
…
She gets the wedding invitation on a Saturday, together with her morning coffee. Dan and Serena are there, had stayed the night after a late dinner, and while she opens the envelope and stares at the classy combination of ivory and sage, she can hear Rosie babble on Dan’s lap and Serena chatter on about wanting to go to Kenia. She swallows compulsively in order not to scream, and then carefully puts the card back into the envelope.
“Blair?” Blair turns her head. Dan is looking at her with worry, and Serena has stopped talking. “Is everything alright?”
She nods. “Yeah.” Her voice sounds normal. “Chuck’s getting married, that’s all.” Blair gives a shrug and a little smile. Serena’s voice pitches higher in sympathy, but Blair doesn’t even hear her. She wishes she was alone so she could cry. A hand on her shoulder makes her look up, and when she does, Dan’s grim eyes find hers.
“Hold the baby”, he says quietly, and shoves Rosie into her arms. “Holding the baby helps with the sadness.”
“I’m not sad”, Blair presses out, but she cradles Rosie close, stroking her back, and thinks.
The woman, Natalie, is insanely young (23, she’s just a girl, really, and Blair almost feels bad for her) insanely beautiful (tall, thin, long blonde curls and a sweet mocking smile and it is just so typical for him, choosing a girl who looks like Serena just to annoy her) and insanely nice (she loves children and does charity work, saving animals and woods, and it makes Blair want to throw up). Even Henry likes her.
They have some sort of polite, awkward family dinner, Blair, Henry, Chuck and Natalie the child-bride. Blair looks at Chuck looking at Natalie, and finds that he doesn’t love her, because his eyes aren’t soft enough and his smiles not warm enough. They tell stories and already have inside jokes, and after a while Blair excuses herself and goes out into the backyard to have a cigarette. She has never been one to smoke much, but she did not have her mental breakdown yet and she thinks she needs this theatric moment of weakness.
After a while, someone comes to stand beside her, lighting one up as well. “I don’t want us to be some sort of patchwork family”, Chuck says. “But I thought that this was important for Henry.”
“I know”, she lies, “I don’t mind, really.”
He chuckles. “God, we are so civil. I feel old all of a sudden.”
Blair laughs and she hopes that Natalie can hear it. “Don’t worry, love”, she says, her hand touching his wrist. “I have a plan.”
And heaven, yes, she has. It’s not that she wants him back, exactly. It’s not even that she does not want him to marry Natalie. It’s just that she could not bear the thought of losing him for real. She needs to know that it is still her he prefers. And, above all, she needs him to know that it is still her he prefers.
In the weeks before the wedding, she follows a meticulous schedule. She gets herself a man (nothing too serious, but close enough to make Chuck a little jealous) and she wears her hair in an up-do a lot more often, giving him looks on her neck whenever it is appropriate; she comes personally to collect Henry from his house, chatting away with Natalie (who is either completely naïve or has no guts to fight at all) until he comes home, just so she can look him in the eyes, smile a little and say that she’ll have to be off now, really. She does not need to do much more.
On the morning of their wedding, she manages to get into his hotel room. Natalie is three rooms away, with about three hundreds of bridesmaids around her, and nobody will come to see him before the afternoon. They’ve got plenty of time.
He just steps out of the shower, towel around his waist, and his eyes widen when he sees her. “Blair. What are you doing here?” She grins. “I just wanted to make sure that you’re not getting any cold feet.” He comes closer, a smile on his face that seems to be real, and for some reason it makes her sad. “How thoughtful. Can I offer you a drink?” She leans towards him and shakes her head. “I’m not going to stay long, thank you.” It is important, she thinks, that he knows what this is about, and that he does it anyway. That this is about Blair owning him, about him admitting that.
He kisses her, and she forgets what game it is they’re playing.
Later that afternoon, when he stands at the aisle next to Natalie, she can’t help but feel disappointed. Apparently, the little girly Blair who would have believed that Chuck would just leave Natalie and marry her instead (again) has not yet disappeared completely. But then she sees the look on his face when he says yes, that troubled, hurt expression, and it is okay again because she knows that he will always picture her anyway.
…
It’s not the first time they are having an affair. They are good at this, they are quiet and professional and they are lying to everyone, including themselves. It is meeting up twice a month, in an office or at her home or in a hotel room. It is a good thing that they are officially friends, she thinks, because nobody asks questions. Dan’s writing goes better than ever and he’s busy with the little girl while Serena is spending months at a time in Spain and Morocco. They don’t have the time to get suspicious. She will freely admit that she loves their little meetings, if she manages not to think about Natalie and her beaming smile. Even though she pretends not to, she secretly enjoys being the other woman more than she enjoyed being the wife. Maybe it is because she knows that this situation will shift soon anyway – there is no pressure, no plans.
It is about six months after the wedding when Natalie rings her doorbell.
Dorota leads her into the living room, and she sits on the couch very stiffly, looking strangely small for such a tall girl. Blair sits next to her, and the smile on her face comes easy.
“Well, then, what can I do for you?” She really thinks that she will help Natalie, whatever the problem is. Blair is sleeping with her husband, after all, one could argue that she owes her.
The blonde woman takes a deep breath, she smiles a little but her eyes are sad. “I want you to decide.”
Blair’s stomach twists, but she simply raises an eyebrow. “I am not sure I can follow.”
Natalie looks disappointed. “Really, Blair? You can’t?”
Blair doesn’t answer.
“Look”, Natalie continues, her fingers are playing with her hair. “I love Chuck. Maybe it is stupid, and you probably think I’m pathetic, but I really do. I love him, and I adore Henry, and I really like you, but I can’t keep doing this. I don’t know what exactly it is you are doing with him, if you have sex or if you don’t, but I want you to decide. He loves you. I know that. Everyone knows that. He would leave me in a second if you offered more to him again. And you don’t… I don’t think you appreciate that enough. I really don’t want to hate you”, her voice breaks, “but… you hurt him constantly, and I can’t keep waiting for you to decide. If you really want him back, tell him that and he will leave me and I will move on. If you don’t want him back, then please, leave him alone, because I love him and I know that I can make him love me too if you just let him go.” Natalie is sobbing now, big tears falling, soft voice, and Blair can’t remember if she ever felt that terrible before.
She doesn’t sleep that night; instead she calls him and asks him to come over. “I’m with Natalie”, he says, and she hates the fact he hesitates. “It’s important”, she says.
Fifteen minutes later he’s there, and they have sex first, because she needs the physical contact and also because she needs the post-coital-atmosphere to approach the topic.
“Natalie was here tonight”, she murmurs when he lies next to her and his lips are on her neck. He stiffens and turns to face her. “What did she want?”, he asks, his voice a little hoarse.
“For me to let you go.” He sighs, almost inaudibly, she feels the body movement more than she hears the release of air. “What did you say?”, he asks.
“I said that I would talk to you.”
“And such a fine job you did of keeping your promise, too”, he answers. Blair laughs and rests her head against his chest.
“What do you want?”, she asks. “I mean, if we keep doing this, you will be divorced a second time.”
“It’s not really about what I want, though, is it?”, he says quietly and Blair is silent for a moment.
“That doesn’t answer the question”, she says.
He sighs, loudly this time, it’s almost a groan. “I don’t know, Blair. I love you. I do. But that isn’t the question.”
Blair nods. Ironically, that’s never really been the question for them. “I think you should stay with Natalie”, she says quietly. He turns his head abruptly.
“I think we should get dressed, and then you should go to her, tell her everything and beg her to stay with you. She will forgive you, and you will live happily ever after.”
Chuck hasn’t objected yet, and it breaks her heart. “What about you?”, he asks.
“I’ll find someone else to make unhappy”, she says. The fact that this sentence is true hurts more than anything else. He looks at her. “You never made me unhappy”, he says. She thinks that it is as cute as it is out of character, this little last pretend, and strokes his cheek. “I usually was the reason you were.” She gets up and puts on her dress without bothering to get into the silk tights first.
“I think we should not see each other anymore”, she says. “Not even for Henry. Dorota can bring and collect him.” He swallows. “For how long?”
She hesitates. “Six months? A year? As long as it takes to get out of each other’s heads. Again.”
He starts laughing, a bitter chuckle at first that turns into an almost hysterical giggle. Blair joins in, and so there they are; him lying naked on a bed, her standing partially dressed by the door, laughing at something that wasn’t even meant to be funny.
Then they stop, and look at each other. “I love you, you know”, she says, and remembers a time when she thought that these words were the solution to all their problems. He nods. “See you around, Waldorf.”
…
Not seeing him at all is hard. She forbids herself any form of stalking, throws herself into work and meets up with Serena twice a week. She thinks that she is doing well, really, until Dan asks her how for long she wants to continue this and says that he can’t bear seeing her this unhappy for much longer.
So she gets herself a man. His name is Edward, he went to Oxford, and his money is older than her country. Blair realizes she is tired of people like him within the first hour of meeting him. She doesn’t tell him that. She takes him home instead, and offers him to stay. He does, for a while; brings her flowers and they talk about books and she doesn’t bitch about her work and schemes in front of him, because he isn’t the kind of man to do that with. Henry doesn’t like him. It isn’t meant to last.
He leaves, and others come. Blair doesn’t feel like looking for love anymore, she is past that romantic nonsense, but she always thought that a handsome man in a nice suit was as much of a classic and universally flattering as red lipstick. In a way, she’s shopping for accessories.
…
It takes them a year before they see each other, and when they do, the circumstances forbid avoiding a meeting. They're called in by the headmistress, who makes them sit next to each other and opposite her as if they were still students, and tells them that Henry keeps hitting other pupils and that, essentially, she blames their divorce for it. Blair thinks that it might actually be the gene pool, because she finds the idea of punching the woman into her self-righteous face rather tempting.
“What did he name as a reason for the fights?”, Chuck asks, and lifts his left eyebrow in a rather intimidating manner. “How does the reason matter?”, the teacher says, crosses her arms and leans back. “Nothing excuses breaking three noses within one month.” Blair looks at Chuck, one eyebrow raised, and finds that he looks back with a mirroring expression. Blair, forcefully suppressing the smile that threatens to take over her face, decides to let him take this one. If the woman is somehow not intimidated by him, she can cut in any time.
“So, you're saying”, says Chuck lowly, his voice a dark, velvety bass, and not for the first time Blair finds herself oddly turned on by the fact that the voice he uses to make threats sounds just like the voice he has right after an orgasm, “that you are calling us here, out of our workplaces, to complain to us about our son without even having bothered to check all facts. This is, of course, highly interesting. We will have to see that the committee hears about this frankly appalling lack of engagement.”
“Oh, don't worry, dear”, Blair says, placing her hand lightly on his arm, “I'm having Marina Stanhurst over for dinner tomorrow night, and we were going to discuss staff and rearrangements anyway, this topic fits in just splendidly. I'll see it done.”
The headmistress has gone rather pale, and Blair lifts from her chair.
“This should be all, then?”
The woman on the other side of the desk straightens her back and clears her throat. “Mrs Waldorf, I hardly believe that even you could have enough power to abuse in order to get me out of this office. I think a better way to spend your time would be talking to your child about what he has done and show him consequences instead of threatening to destroy everyone who dares to criticize him.”
She feels Chuck stiffening a little and turns around to face the teacher, a wide cruel smile on her face.
“Mrs...”, her eyes trail to the sign on the woman's desk, “Coby, in the six months you have been at this school – have you really learned nothing at all?”
They wait until they are outside the school before they burst out laughing.
“I cannot believe this woman”, Blair says and Chuck is shaking with mirth. “Yes, did nobody warn her? Do they just give this job out to anybody nowadays?” he asks and she gives him a non-committal shrug, changing the topic. “I'm thinking- should we dispose of her quickly and discretely, or should we wait a bit and publicly humiliate her at the annual Christmas party?” Chuck purses his lips. “I've got to say – my heart says public humiliation.” Blair smiles up at him, her first genuine smile in a year. “Bass, we understand each other. But still – I'm going to talk to Henry first.” Chuck nods. “Do you want me to be there?” Blair thinks about it. The truth is no, she's way too much of a control freak to want for anyone, even Chuck, to talk to her son about something this important. On the other hand, as Henry's father, he has absolutely every right to be there. She doesn't want him to feel left out, but honestly, she'd rather leave him out of it. Blair gives him a small smile. “Only if you want to be there.” Chuck studies her for a moment, then smiles and shakes his head. “You do that one on your own. I'll just give him tips how to punch properly and without getting caught when he is with me next weekend.” She giggles, promises to call him after she is done, and forces herself not to look back when she gets in the cab.
Henry turns out to be reluctant to explain himself, and it isn't until Blair has called Dorota to order them pizza and they have watched Matilda on Henry's bed that Blair tries to approach the topic.
“So... did anyone bully you?”, she asks, sitting across of him, a pint of Ben & Jerry's between them. “I mean, it's not that I have never broken anybody's nose before, but I thought that I'd taught you to solve these things differently.” Henry shakes his head. “Not me, exactly. I could handle that. Just this friend of mine – and he says he doesn't like manipulating people.” “Who is it? Do I know his parents?” Blair already lists all potential families she could call and invite for tea and a talk. It's not only that she is curious who this person is her son is risking his academic future for, she also thinks that she might as well teach them both the advantages of basic scheming, so she would not have to do it twice. “You wouldn't know them”, Henry says, eyes locked on his spoon. “They are from Brooklyn.”
Blair hits her head on the blanket a good dozen times to make a point.
“Henry is beating up bullies for someone from Brooklyn”, she says later that night, having called Chuck for the first time in over a year, and she hears him laugh. “We shouldn't have let him spend so much time with Dorota's children”, he says quietly. “Yes”, Blair chuckles, looking at the arrangement of photographs on her bedside table, “who would've thought that the product of a combination of both our genes would be noble enough to not only not be a bully, but to beat bullies and get in trouble for it?”
“Oh please”, Chuck says, “you once broke my nose when I tried to look under Serena's uniform skirt.”
Blair's eyes widen. “You were the one with the broken nose. I told Henry about it today, but I forgot who it was!” She had never forgotten whose nose she broke, but she likes the air of nonchalance pretending brings.
“It was me. That was the day I decided once and for all that you were more interesting than Serena.” “At age eleven?”
“Well, I had gravitated towards it since we were eight, but Serena started having boobs way sooner than you.”
She groans. “You don't have to tell me. I tried to make them grow with my mind for eight months.”
“You tried to make them grow with your mind?” His voice is shaking now, which she takes as a sign of suppressed laughter, and smiles.
“I tried to concentrate on it every night for an hour before I went to bed. As a way of self-hypnosis, if you want. You know, commanding your body to work the way you want it to. I had stolen a few self-help books out of my mother's room back then.”
“I trust it didn't help?”
“Well, I suppose after eight months puberty just started by itself, but of course I was convinced that it had been my doing.” She hears him snort.
“Of course you were.” His voice is strangely tender, and she needs a few seconds before changing the topic.
“So, what are we doing about Brooklyn?”
“I suggest nothing for now. I will have him point me out the villains, and will take care of them. And then let's hope that he gets sick of hipster children quickly.”
“Yes”, she agrees. “We shouldn't judge. After all, we both had a Brooklyn phase for a while.”
“You had a Brooklyn phase”, he corrects, “I just was not all that selective at times.”
She stretches out her hand and her fingers trace the frame of the only photo she still has of him – taken on their honeymoon in Morocco, in a white linen suit, smile so big it consumes his whole face. She thinks about asking him about it, maybe asking if he remembers the day, but bites her tongue. She knows he remembers. He always does.