PRECIPICE

Author: Sky Samuelle

Summary: Post 1.18 - Chuck is forced to relive the past he left behind when his biological mother returns in his life. Blair's revenge doesn't help. Or does it?

Prologue

After all those years since the last time he had seen her, he was certain he had forgotten almost everything about her.

He had trained himself to forget, so well that even indoor swimming pools hadn't made him uncomfortable in ages, though he still thought of them as subtly sinister places, and not necessarily in a negative way. It was probably a testament to his curious inclination toward all that was morbid that he loved pool parties.

Yet…when he had entered the Palace bar, all it had taken to recognize her was a cursory glance around the room; his eyes had found themselves glued to that slender female figure by the bar stool, not so much because her clothing didn't look as expensive and fashionable as the regular customers', but because of the way her red hair fell on her back. So familiar… he had fleetingly remembered there was a reason he liked redheads the least.

Then she had inclined her head over her shoulder and as their eyes met, numbness had washed over him.

A more mentally stable person would have probably turned on his heels and walked out the door, but Chuck Bass had always been rather comfortable with the suspicion that he would never be one of those people. He couldn't have left, not when he had perceived so clearly the weight of their mutual recognition.

He had to have walked to her, because the next thing he was aware of, he was sitting close to her.

"Hello, Mother"

He had acknowledged her, his voice cool and unfaltering like the whole situation was nothing but ordinary. In her eyes there was no glimpse of remorse or shame, but he hadn't expected differently.

Instead her gaze was hard and cutting, so much like his could sometimes become, that in a fugacious moment of insight, he had understood perfectly why Bart seemed to be so little prone to getting to know his only son. This was almost like staring back into a mirror.

"Hello, Charlie"

She had smiled, and he was fairly confident that if he had been capable of feeling something, anything at all, he would have hated that woman intensely for the self-satisfied grimace on her thin lips.

As it was, he had merely mirrored her gelid smile, conscious of the nasty edge creeping into it, and ordered a scotch.

"They call me Chuck nowadays"

---

1

Spotted: C meeting, once again, an unknown redhead in her mid-thirties outside Victrola. Except the mystery woman isn't so mysterious anymore. A very reliable source assures me that she is in fact not a lover but…his mother! No, my dearest friends, Misty Bass hasn't turned to plastic surgery. Wonder of wonders, our resident Devil is a bastard in name AND fact. As the fruit of a very illicit liaison, our secretive C was adopted into his father's legitimate family, before the Basses moved to New York. Poor Misty, that must have been humiliating! Wonder what Lily Bass has to say? You know you love me... XOXO... Gossip Girl...

"Chuck? What are you doing out here at this hour? "

It was cold on the balcony of the 'Van der Bass' (as the newly formed family had been nicknamed by the ever-interested Gossip Girl) penthouse, but Chuck didn't mind the chilly air of the wee hours of morning on his heated face and neck. Perhaps 3am was far too early for a joint, but at least he could finally breathe freely and live with memories he would have once pretended to forget.

Unconcerned with the presence of the blonde boy who was standing somewhere behind him, Chuck kept his stare focused on the grey smoke circles in the air.

"You haven't the correct chromosomal asset to play housekeeper to me, kid. "

After months of relatively peaceful cohabitation, the appreciation he had developed for Eric's company didn't propel him to stop calling him 'Kid'. Really, keeping around the younger Van der Woodsen was just like taking care of a starry-eyed puppy, needy of attention and eager for approval.

Sometimes the younger boy sort of reminded Chuck of how Nate used to be, except Eric was way more brainy, attentive and self-conscious than anyone had any right to be at his age.

Which was good, because it had gifted Chuck with a new hobby: moulding his shiny new little brother into a real boy before the marriage between their parents dissolved like dust.

Still, it was annoying, being forced to defend his personal space without giving free reign to his usual verbal repertoire of crude vulgarity. Being harsh with Eric Van der Woodsen was worse than shooting at the Red Cross: not only it was ultimately useless, but it also denied you any form of momentary satisfaction. Ah, this was exactly why he used to steer away from delicate-looking

people!

Eric shuddered, rubbing his arms in a useless attempt to get warmer, but kept observing the older boy sprawled out on the balcony floor, smoking and staring up at the starless sky, like he hadn't a care in the world.

Appearances could be far too deceiving in their world.

Eric ventured outside, leaving the glass door ajar, and crouched beside the brunette.

"I couldn't sleep either"

Chuck didn't reply for so long that the other boy was trying to gather whether his stepbrother was so far gone to have completely forgotten his presence, when the silence was eventually broken.

" Did you know my mother tried to kill herself, once?"

The blonde cocked his head to have a better view of his interlocutor, but given both the half-light and Chuck's penchant for going completely expressionless whenever it suited his sour and changeable mood, his attempt to gauge his intentions was useless.

Well, it was a rhetorical question anyway.

"Misty? "

He inquired softly, even while he had a strong feeling Chuck wasn't referring to the woman who had figuratively raised him for the most of his life.

"Vivian."

Chuck drawled almost indifferently, before going on "My father had purchased her this villa, to keep her quiet and away from the society pages. He either didn't know her very well or he just thought he could put a damper on her avidity over time. What she wanted was to be the next Mrs. Bass. And when it became clear the only thing she could force out of Big Bad Bart was his money, she snapped. She couldn't swim, so… one morning she woke me up and took me to the pool. "

"My God."

Sitting up, Chuck shrugged without sparing a glance at Eric's horrified expression.

"Either way, I kicked her to get free as we were going down. I think I remember screaming. Fortunately, it was enough of a scene to catch the attention of the maids and after that accident my father could hardly leave me with her again."

It didn't matter how little Bart had wanted a son from a woman he despised so. It was surprising how clear everything about his family dynamics had became since he had seen his biological mother again.

Chuck made a calculated effort to smooth his features into an insentient mask before he finally turned to face his stepbrother. Meeting those cerulean eyes full of--pity? Empathy? -- made him shake in both shame and anger. Mostly anger, really.

"I didn't tell you this story so we could bond and have a good cry over it"

He snapped, hardly caring whether his tone was laced with bitterness.

It had the desired effect, because the next moment Eric seemed to get over himself: the sentimentality in his eyes faded, his features almost mirrored Chuck's previous placid indifference.

When he spoke, nothing more than a modest curiosity was detectable in his voice.

"So why did you do it?"

Chuck smirked, a bit cruelly. "You are the resident expert on suicide here and I need a consultation. I want to know what she wants from me now."

He experienced a sharp pang of remorse the moment after that blunt line crossed his lips. Eric didn't really deserve his harshness and although he had Nate's friendship back, he didn't mean to drive away his recently acquired sibling.

His gaze raked along the blonde's pointy visage, looking for signs of resentment, but much to his disbelief, Eric only shrugged and gave him an inquisitive look, appearing hardly perturbed.

"How might I tell? I don't know anything of her. "

Chuck let out a dry chuckle, in spite of himself, although his expression clouded over. It amused him that the reluctant familiarity he sensed around his mother felt more real than any understanding he and his father had established in seventeen years, and yet it was based on nothing concrete. He didn't know his mother any more than Eric did.

Fighting instinctively a growing sense of exposure, Chuck turned his face away from the younger boy. He didn't care to analyze what his features could be displaying right now, and Eric had a way of looking at things in too much depth.

Yet, the pause was enough to allow Eric to understand the question had been very serious, and this gave him sufficient confidence to pursue the matter further.

"What did she tell you when you saw her?"

Chuck turned toward his brother again, a feverish glint in his gaze, a frustrated animation all over his features. It was very apparent that, however strongly he wanted to pretend otherwise, he was incapable of doing his usual cool and unaffected act, and that only disturbed him more.

"The first time, it was only a stroll down memory lane. And now I swear it's like she's stalking me! Everywhere I turn when I get out this house, she's there. I casually meet her at my tailor's, I spot her in my favourite drinking refuges. Victrola, too. And each time, I'm forced to go along with her game and pretend it's a coincidence. "

"Look, you already know Blair was the one to tip off Gossip Girl, she admitted that much. And wait, how exactly are you being forced? "

"Well, duh" – Chuck spat-"I have no way to get that bitch to approach the actual point of this un-endearing cat-and-mouse dance. I don't like being played with! Any insult I throw at her, it slides off her shoulders like water… "

Eric inclined his head pensively, taking in his brother's transparent annoyance and volatile mood in a way which left the latter slightly unsettled. Or irritated. Right now, it was really the same thing.

"Are you really that upset that she's not giving up?"

Chuck's first impulse was denying he was *upset* about anything, but he recognized it would be a useless course, so he just raised his eyebrows in a pose of exaggerated indignation.

"Giving up on what, exactly? "

"You. Your forgiveness. Something like that."

"Please, Eric. Were you listening at all when I made clear the woman doesn't care for what I think of her? I might almost bet she enjoys causing me stress."

"If she worries you that much, you should discuss it with Bart. Seriously, this time. "

Actually, it amazed Eric that the two Basses were so adamant about sidestepping the mere mention of Vivian's name or presence in New York. The only time Lily had cornered her husband in facing the issue- Eric and Serena had been rather apt to overhear whole colourful conversation- Bart had painted his ex-lover as a sort of vindictive, manipulative, greedy preying mantis.

At first the description hadn't worried Eric much, since many people he knew would describe Chuck the same way. Maybe he had been wrong.

The other boy had, in the meantime, returned his full attention to the weed he had temporarily abandoned, inhaling and exhaling a mouthful of smoke with the utmost concentration before speaking again.

"What if this is what she wants? It might all be a ruse to squeeze more money out of my father."

It was the root of the dilemma: if this was a ploy, he didn't want to fall for it. If it wasn't a ploy and his mother wasn't using him…it wasn't necessarily a less tricky situation.

He didn't know Vivian and he didn't want know her. He didn't want to see figments of himself in her. He didn't want to remember her or even find out whether she was using him or not.

Which was possibly why he still hadn't chosen a definite approach for this particular problem.

"Can you really carry on not knowing?"

Eric simply stated and Chuck afforded a moment or two to passively hate him for being right. This situation made him feel stupid and it wasn't pleasant.

He didn't need to respond, so he let a poignant silence descend between them.

Too bad Eric broke it again. "At least Gossip Girl hasn't gotten a hold of whole the story. "

"Only because I didn't spill the most morbid details to Blair"

"I can't believe she tipped Gossip Girl off"

Even coming from Constance's Queen Bee, it had been too radical of a retribution. Especially since it seemed she was coming around to forgiving her boyfriend for last summer's faux-pass of cheating on her in a fit of commitment-induced terror.

"I expected it" Chuck remarked dryly, his face blank again under Eric's surprised gaze.

"So why did you confide in her?"

The baffled tone of the Eric's inquiry made Chuck genuinely smile as he shrugged, unabashed.

"I screwed Amelia, Blair screwed me over. We are even now. Hopefully, we'll move past it."

When the secret of what he had done before joining Blair in Tuscany had came to light, the only reason she hadn't left him was the fact that she couldn't deal with the social repercussions of another public break-up. So she had kept him, but their alone time was filled with nothing but a vicious circle of angry sex and empty, cutting words.

So he had given her a chance to hurt him back. Hard.

He had known she would catch it: she was Blair Waldorf, and she couldn't change overnight any more than Chuck Bass could.

That was all he had wanted to prove to her: showing her how the bond between them was stronger than they were.

He could take her retribution if it fixed the damage to their relationship. If it didn't work out… he would have nothing and accept it was his fault. He wouldn't have given up on Blair- losing her wasn't an option anymore, not over a stupid, self-destructive impulse - but he would have fought and plotted harder to gain another chance.

"Do you still… want to be with her?"

"I never stopped"

It was the truth. Even while he was escaping from Blair into another woman's arms, he had known his rebellion wouldn't change a thing -his heart would have remained, unsafe and trembling, in her perfectly manicured hands- and yet he hadn't willed himself to stop.

That betrayal hadn't been about not wanting her, but about wanting himself- and the security that came with it-back.

"And you really wouldn't retaliate?"

"I told you Blair and I are even, Kid"

The beginning of anger in Chuck's remark shut Eric up.

It was a twisted, insane reasoning. More so because it had a deviated sense of its own and if you considered carefully the people involved, the plan could work.

Maybe it was slightly shocking that his brother was more depressed than angry over the whole ordeal, but Eric Van der Woodsen didn't feel it was his right to be really disturbed by it.

What did he know?

Perhaps the only way to open a closed heart was by destroying and rebuilding it.

2

"Was it really necessary? "

Blair looked briefly up from her Cosmo magazine to find Serena on the threshold of her bedroom. As the dark-haired girl lay on her stomach on her bed, she allowed herself a moment to hate how perfect her blonde nemesis looked, with her cheeks flushed and her features hardened by self-righteous indignation, her blonde mane falling untamed and glorious on her shoulders.

Something in the picture the two of them posed caused an unexpected but powerful déjà vu- hadn't they been here before, when there was that infamous pregnancy-scare? - and Blair lowered her gaze back to the magazine, turning a page carelessly before answering.

"You know me too well for this question, S"

Her voice dripped with boredom and condescension and she noticed a small smirk was working its way up to her lips. She killed it right away, because it reminded her too much of him andright now she couldn't stand to have anything in common with that bastard.

Serena huffed softly, her shoulders sagging a little in defeat. "Why did you do it? "

Blair looked up again, frowning and clearly annoyed, and drawled coldly:

"Out of all the people to betray me, I couldn't believe he was the one to get away with it. He cheated on me, right before sweeping me off my feet with a romantic Italian getaway! He had the nerve to act all innocent and unconcerned for months. Like it was nothing! Should I have allowed him to move on as if nothing had happened?"

Serena shook her head, advancing a few steps closer to the bed before stopping. It made her uncomfortable talking about this with her best friend, largely because it seemed the smallest hint of a wrong move could send Blair into a fit of nerves.

Besides, the blonde had rather confused opinions over the matter. Sure, she resented Chuck for hurting Blair, but with her past and her difficult first relationship with Dan Humphrey, she could also relate to his difficulties.

There was also the obvious fact those two really cared about each other in their unique, dysfunctional way. Before having a casual, revealing meeting with Lily's interior decorator, Blair had looked so genuinely carefree and relaxed, often even happy… her stepbrother had been less bothersome than usual, occasionally human.

Maybe it was too good to last long, but the way their artificial heaven had crashed down around them had been too brutal.

"It was a low blow, even if it was aimed to Chuck. If you could think of doing this to him now, after everything, maybe you should have left him"

Blair carelessly curled a lock of her chocolate hair around her index finger, her face only vaguely hostile, her unremorseful eyes never leaving her friend as she scoffed:

"Please. Was I supposed to dump him, so he would feel free to regress to his whoring ways? That would have hardly been an educational experience."

Ignoring every instinct she had to back away from her interlocutor and imposing on herself the obligation to stay put, Serena sniggered, the sound so blatantly forced that Blair felt almost embarrassed on her account. "Your solution was staying with him as long it took you to backstab him?!"

Blair answered her with a small, ruthless smirk that left Serena even colder.

"Two words, S: - a pause for effect, an intake of breath for gathering courage- proportional response."

Of course, her behaviour wasn't completely rational but Blair wouldn't have admitted it, particularly not when Serena insisted on unnerving her with her interest. Regardless of their complicated relationship, Chuck was still hers and Serena had no business in interfering, family ties or not.

Hadn't they learnt something from the unparalleled disaster of their life-long triangle with Nate?

And since when did post-boarding school Serena take an active interest in Chuck's feelings, anyway?

"You forgave Nate."

Jaw clenching in anger, Blair was about to snap that it was a completely different situation, but held back. She didn't want to explain why it was different.

Nate Archibald was like the sweetest childhood fantasy: you could attain it for awhile, but in the end it didn't matter how hard you tried, how desperately you held on, how much you settled or trained yourself to not see the cracks; the reality never lived up to the dream.

Chuck Bass had been… unexpected, but tangibly attainable.

Nate had remained somehow distant, out of her reach throughout the whole the course of their relationship, so when she had lost him, it was as devastating as a nightmare coming true, but some part of her also had felt freed from that constant suspicion of not being enough, the stifling responsibility to make the ideal into a reality.

Chuck had been hers, or at least he had led her to believe so.

That week they had spent together in Tuscany was beyond perfection: she remembered so vividly how they had twice fought furiously over virtual nothings and how once they stayed up the whole night talking as they walked under the moonlight. Those mornings they had wasted re-learning each other's bodies. Without shame or guilt or dramas.

It was what she couldn't forgive him for: the honesty in his gaze when he said she was the most beautiful, the boldness in his hands and mouth while they explored her, like he took for granted his right to touch her after fucking his step-mom's interior decorator hours before making promises to her.

He had made her trust the darkness reflected in his eyes while she sighed his name in surrender, and that was a deception she was only capable of repaying with a deception of her own. She had pretended to be the better woman, willing to concede another chance, all while her fury still simmered under the surface and all that she could do to express it was pin him to a wall, drag him down to the nearest flat stool, haul him inside the nearest closeted space.

She had chosen not to analyze why Chuck had accepted to play along with her charade.

He wasn't hers and – regardless of the feelings she could or could not inspire in him- he had never really wanted to be. That was the real reason she couldn't let go.

Not because he had lied to her, but because the illusion he had crafted for her was better than anything else Nate had ever offered and she had desperately wanted it to be real.

Yet, Blair couldn't bring herself to expose the true extent of her idiocy to her perfectly imperfect best friend. So she only replied:

"You aren't in any position to bring up Nate with me."

It was no secret that Nate and Serena had grown closer after their summer in the Hamptons and it was painfully clear that her ex-boyfriend was just waiting until Serena got over her mourning of Dan Humphrey before making his move.

About Serena… Blair had the feeling the only obstacle stopping her from accepting his undying veneration was her fear of Blair's reaction.

If Blair had been a better person, maybe the brunette would have spared all of them from drawing out the drama which was inevitably to follow, and generously given her blessing to the couple.

But Blair Waldorf wasn't generous or selfless, and she had no intention of giving her friends her approval unless she was cornered into it. Which would eventually happen, because Nate and Serena weren't shining examples of virtue either.

Anyway, Blair had no intention of speeding up the moment she would be publicly, overtly and crudely mocked by her past failures. Especially since her most recent failure still stung so much.

Something like anger flashed briefly across Serena's beautiful visage and was forcedly suffocated.

It gave Blair a certain satisfaction, at least until the other girl spoke.

"I'm not sure I like you much when you're like this, B. "

"Keep your judging for someone who has not scraped you off the floor when you still referred to yourself as Lady Cocaine,"

Blair unkindly advised, addressing her best friend with a palpable but controlled disdain that had in the past been reserved for her less likable cronies.

Serena didn't let it get to her. "What will you do now?"

Blair's expression was remote as she blinked slowly, then lowered her eyes.

Severing all ties with Chuck meant losing an apt conspirator and old friend. She hadn't coped well with that the last time they had parted ways.

Cutting him out of her life also meant he would turn – probably sooner than it was socially acceptable- to others for sex and company. She couldn't deal with that, either.

Since the supposition of her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend being closer to his new stepsister already made her skin crawl, it was safe to bet that being properly replaced would feel even worse.

A sense of impending loss gripped her insides and Blair felt suddenly dirty, inadequate, impossibly tempted to purge herself.

Maybe the decision no longer depended on her. After she had exposed such a private, delicate issue of his life, Chuck could be sufficiently angry to end their relationship himself.

She hadn't considered the possibility and it was silly, but it hurt. It sent her reeling in anger, loathing, and sadness all together.

She had wanted to let him know how it felt, to offer someone the lowest part of you and to have that gift blow in your face, but she hadn't prepared herself for the blade of his hatred.

Now the fog of denial was dissipating from her mind, it dawned on her that she had purposefully avoided him since Gossip Girl had exploited the scandal.

Blair had told herself that it was because she couldn't wait to listen to all the juicy comments of their clique. It wasn't every day one of theirs turned out to be potential trailer trash.

Now she realized she simply hadn't been ready to face the consequences of her actions.

He had avoided her just as determinedly, probably waiting for her to come to him.

If she went to him now, would Chuck have reserved for her a welcoming as harsh as that terrible night at the Palace bar?

Or maybe there would have been only that quietly apathetic mockery he spared for his lowest days.

Neither alternative was very attractive.

"Blair? "

Serena prompted, worried by the long, uncomfortable silence.

The softness in her tone did nothing but anger Blair more.

"I don't know,"- the dark-haired girl bit back harshly, the fury in her glare startling her friend- "I don't know."

3

"I missed you."

The words rolled out his mouth sleazily as he plastered a cocky smirk on his lips, bravado easily covering his uncertainty.

Blair looked good: her high-collared blouse and thick black tights, coupled with a knee-length pleated black skirt, covered and revealed her body's curves all at once, tempting Chuck to pull her inside his room and flush against his chest, to forget that the heat twisting his gut wasn't lust.

He allowed his eyes to linger on her figure until it made her uncomfortable, but the truth was he just didn't want to focus on her face, on her eyes.

He didn't want to deal with the implications of what he could find there.

Instead, Blair focused on nothing but his face, a little stung that the way he stood, firm and still on the threshold, blocking her entrance to his room, was more revealing than his bland expression. Her pretence of confidence almost slipped, and venom filled her mouth as her last defence.

"Wow, five seconds into the conversation and you are already insulting my intelligence. It must be a new record!"

Bantering with him came natural to her. Always had, for as long as she could remember. She hoped this would never change.

His eyes met hers and Chuck smirked a little. She was relieved when he stepped aside and let her in.

A tense silence followed the click of a door shutting behind her back.

Half of her wanted to run back and avoid the confrontation, the other was eagerly relishing the waiting, the pressure of his intense gaze on her as they stared at each other.

Haughtily, she held her chin up and took in every shadow and contour of his visage, tried reading there some indication of what was about to come

Always the one to rush head-on toward Apocalypse, he didn't disappoint her. Slyly, Chuck raised his eyebrows and commented casually.

"Satisfied with your handiwork?"

She expected worse than that. "Not as much I thought I would be"

"Small consolation for me."

He shrugged and suddenly Blair felt lost, out of her element.

"I'm sorry."

She could have cringed at the weakness in her voice if she had not been so busy trying to contain her spinning thoughts

"So am I."

"Are we over?"

"You tell me, B. Aren't you making a show of being the one who calls all the shots in this relationship?"

His passive complacency was driving her mad. She knew him well enough to recognize when he was using it to cover a plan, and right now every instinct she had was screaming at her that he had one and she was about to walk straight into it.

"Someone must draw the lines, and you always liked being the liar who pulls the strings from behind the curtain better."

Her coldness matched his and she could finally see his mask of indifference cracking around the edges as irritation –and maybe the tiniest sliver of hurt- seeped into his expression.

"How many times must we talk about this? I made a mistake and I kept it from you. You can't convince me that I would have proved more caring if I had hurt you again just to wash my conscience clean."

Blair's expression twisted unpleasantly in anger and she snorted, too out of sorts to mind how little un-ladylike it was of her.

"Conscience? You?"

She laughed, mocking and fake and mean, pleased by the scowl on his face as he watched her.

"Don't turn this on me, Blair. It's not why you're here."

It wasn't, but she wished bringing up his faults could erase hers, or at least her guilt. It couldn't.

So she looked away from him, from the silent accusation raging in his eyes and tense posture. The air was charged between them, but she didn't know how to fill the silence.

"I wanted to hurt you as much you hurt me,"

She admitted uselessly.

"You covered that well."

The immediacy of his reply was as unexpected as the words themselves; Blair looked up from her shoes to his blank face, slightly startled.

She said nothing, only watching him while she felt the invisible hand around her throat slowly squeezing all the air out of her lungs.

It wasn't that being with Chuck was painful, per se, but that being truly herself often cost her more dearly than playing the polished persona she had crafted, and she was more true to herself when she was with him than with anyone else.

"I'm not angry, Blair. I of all people get that payback is fair play, but I need to know if we can move on from here or not."

Blair forced a bitter crackle of laughter out of her throat.

"Do you want to just… erase the score and begin again?"

She cursed the scandalized incredulity in her words. Fighting him over this point wasn't what she wanted, but somehow she hadn't any other choice. Once and again, she would have to rely solely on his stubborn incapacity to accept her refusals.

"Don't you? "

He was too close, but his hands were grasping her shoulders, preventing her from backing away.

Some times she wished he did not know her so well. She wasn't sure if this one was one of those times.

So Blair did the only thing she could: she leaned in and kissed that spiteful, cocky smirk off his lips.

His tongue invaded her mouth eagerly and while she clung to him, clutching the collar around his neck, somewhere in the haze of lust and sorrow that were already beginning to fog her mind, Blair noticed the way Chuck responded right away to her advances never ceased to make her blood to sing.

Even now, she welcomed the elation rushing to her head, the fire kissing her skin at his touch.

They were kissing wildly, pushing and pulling each other closer, hands grasping soft cloth and kneading warm flesh.

Adrenaline had her trembling in his arms, but the rage that had animated their previous sexual approaches was finally dying. Or maybe it had already died, it had flared hot and high the moment she had sold his secret for her pride, leaving behind a dull aching under its ashes.

Now, threading her hands into his hair, yanking his head back and kissing him deeply while he kept her so close, feeling carnal impulses racing through her body, she could acknowledge that her compulsive desire had had less to do with resentment than with a frustrated sense of possession.

She had always aimed to be prim and perfect with everyone but him. Because her mother liked her better that way and she hoped Nate would have loved her more for it, because Serena was too free and easy to pose any competition.

She liked being nasty and unreasonable with Chuck, knowing that her inner Rabid Bitch would turn him on more often than not and that he would have no problem reciprocating her viciousness blow for blow.

Usually it felt good: no one else would have taken from her the same amount of unnecessary meanness and confrontational attitude and appreciated her for it.

But now she couldn't stop thinking about what she had done- in spite of the pressing distraction of Chuck's groping hands on her body- and fighting alternatively her rebellious, overactive mind and sensory-overload was taking too much from her, bringing her an inch away from her breaking point.

She pushed Chuck away, her breath escaping her in short, harsh gasps while she tried resisting his attempts to crush her against him again and regaining some sense.

The urgency concealed in his jerky movements as his fingers tangled and tugged in her hair, or his lips lingered insistently on her temple, heightened both her remorse and her desire.

At this moment Blair wanted nothing but to retreat behind a repentant sugary-sweet façade and apologize, the way she used to do with Nate so long ago.

Or to curl around Chuck and forget Amelia, his mother, everything but him and the freedom he could make her feel.

She couldn't bring herself to do either. Conflicted or not, she couldn't allow him to guess how needy and pathetic she was. At least not when it was all so near to falling apart.

When he kissed her again, gently pressing his lips on hers, Blair pushed herself on him more firmly, deepening the kiss until she could forget herself in it.

Yet she could still feel It, a blossoming awareness of something she had kept tucked inside since Tuscany- maybe even before that, but she wouldn't admit it- slipping a little more free, at each and every bruising kiss and clingy caress.

It was tearing her apart and it was healing her and she really, really didn't want to say It, much less feel It, but she couldn't help herself.

Chuck took her face between his hands and, however much it ashamed her to realize the wetness on his palms were her tears, when he forced her chin up, the agony in his eyes breathed some life into her again.

He felt the same.

I love you - she thought, but for some reason what she sighed was quite the opposite.

"I hate you"

It fell between them like an admission of defeat.

"I love you," he answered flippantly, anything but put off by her resistance.

"Liar."

Yet she was almost smiling.

"You wish"

Chuck smiled too, and it was soft and raw and almost sad, but not bitter.

"No, you wish."

The echo of another night seemed to bridge the rift, melting away the last residue of wariness coating her heart. There was something pleasing in the awareness they were enclosed in, a nearly unbreakable circle of poison and honey.

She relaxed in his arms, allowed him to kiss her forehead and allowed herself to hide her face in his shirt, vaguely comforted by his smell and bodily warmth.

The word forever hung somewhere in the quiet of her mind, but Blair pretended to ignore it.

Perhaps it would be a long time before they could make each other mindlessly happy- assuming they managed to not kill each other in the meantime- but she was okay with that.

They were both difficult people and it was stupid to expect that they could create an idyllic romance without becoming fake and bored with each other.

Plus, she wasn't sure it was what she wanted from him. She wanted his love, yes, however difficult it was to admit, but the explosive dynamism that had always been the basis of their friendship wasn't a prize she was willing to lose.

She fleetingly thought of Serena and Dan, of how – for all her golden, flawed perfection- her best friend had done with Humphrey the very same things Blair had done for Nate--smoothing herself around the edges, bending her beliefs to accommodate his, small sacrifices and happy daydreams had paved the path to heartbreak even for Serena Van der Woodsen.

Nuzzling her face against Chuck's neck, Blair smiled a little -genuinely- and kissed his throat. Maybe she and Chuck had gotten the better end of the deal.

This sort of pandemonium was way healthier.

END