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abvjTitle: Beaten Paths
Summary: There are some things you just can't ever forget. Or twelve things you didn't know about Blair Waldorf.
Rating: pg - 15
Author's Notes: 1,892 words. All mistakes are mine, but the character's aren't. General Series spoilers. Feedback is a lovely, lovely thing.
One.
On her worst of days, she’d retreat back to her parent’s penthouse, stand before a mirror and pinch the miniscule, extra ounce of fat on her stomach with a wistful sigh and heavy heart, wishing to be more like Serena in all the ways that counted – longer hair, perfect skin, carefree disposition.
It’s a gradual process, the eating disorder, starts off as a diet, leads into an obsession, and finishes as a disease that eats at her until she’s a shell of the person she used to be (softer edges – hard to believe she ever had them, she knows, but they were there once upon of time – replaced by jagged ones, bright colors transformed into muted ones).
Years later she’ll tell a shrink (therapy is the in thing, didn’t you know?) that she did it because living in the shadows it stressful and the pressure to be the best version of yourself is always there, and maybe she blames Serena, just a little bit, but she thinks it was about control, too. Her parent’s marriage had been falling apart for as long a she can remember and maybe it was nice, for once, to have something that was completely in her control.
Something no one else could touch.
Two.
At first, she really did hate Dan. Losing Serena was like losing a part of herself – it was the two of them, always, since the very beginning and she doesn’t deny it, she’d took her leaving hard – and it was like Serena had returned only to be taken away again and Blair hated Dan for being the reason.
Hated him because of the way he loved her, really, because it made her realize that that was what love was suppose to be like. New and exciting, always, warm kisses and holding hands, waking up with a smile on your face and thanking God for each new day. It made her realize that even when things were good with her and Nate – and they were once, she knows, even if she can’t distinctly remember – she had never known what that was like. It made her want for things she never realized she was missing.
It’s fitting, she always thought, that the commencement of Dan and Serena coincided with the downfall of her and Nate.
Three.
She thinks about that night in the limo a lot. Chuck’s weight above her, between her legs, his hand inching it’s way under her dress, slowly, cautiously with his lips on hers. She marked the differences between him and Nate in her mind, strong where Nate’s soft, agile where he’s not. It was everything and nothing at once and her hands had skimmed over flesh and bone frantically, tracing lines and patterns like she’s done this before.
“You sure?” he asked quietly, his eyes on hers, steady and unwavering.
And Blair had nodded and whispered yes with an amount of conviction she hadn’t known she possessed and he moved over her, into her, with his lips on hers and it was something kind of out of a movie -- all slow motion and dramatic music. Somewhere down the line she’ll mark it as a turning point of sorts, the beginning of a different sort of stage in her life.
Blair distinctly remembers it as the only time she’d ever felt anything close to resembling whole.
Four.
Yale turns out to kind of not be that big of a deal. New halls to conquer, new minions to acquire. It’s kind of like a glorified Constance’s minus the uniforms but with cuter boys. Blair had worked her whole life to get to that point, to walk across the ivy green, decked out in Yale blue attire and feel some sort of gigantic accomplishment, ready to embark on a new chapter in her life and it turns out to be, more or less, a letdown.
But Blair’s not Blair for nothing and she adjusts easily. Juggles Biology with English, even some Business courses, too, and it’s odd, at first, being the small fish in the big pond with new people and new surroundings.
It’s a fresh start of sorts. Suddenly she’s not B anymore, just Blair. It’s nice.
Five.
She doesn’t really hate Jenny. Not essentially anyway.
It’s more of a matter of self preservation.
Blair wouldn’t go as far as to say she saw a little bit of herself in Little J or any other kind of half-assed bullshit like that, it’s just more or less that she recognizes the fight behind the tight smile and doe eyed look. And maybe, before everything, Blair had fleetingly thought she would have fit in nicely by her side, a loyal servant of sorts (after a complete makeover, attitude adjustment and change in last name, of course, because like hell was she going to have something actually related to Dan Humphrey in her midst twenty-four-seven) but that’s all shot to hell when she spilt secrets that weren’t hers to tell and twists the knife a little further into the Queen’s back.
Sometimes she thinks she took things a little too far, outing Asher the way she did, humiliating Jenny with the birthday party, but then again, you can’t fight fire with fire and not expect to get burned, can you?
Six.
Blair kisses Chuck in the limo, not the other way around.
Later, afterwards when she sneaks out of his room in yesterdays clothes and scrubs her skin raw, she’ll try to rationalize it with things like too much to drink, and being broken hearted, but then she’ll remember that moment, the moment that comes before every kiss where you get a five second span to either move forward or take a step back and how she had aptly ignored it.
She had known exactly what she was doing.
Seven.
She doesn’t regret it. Even after the pregnancy scandal and the scarlet lettering and dethroning, the regret never seeped into her blood. Blair doesn’t regret – admitting regret would be an admission of weakness, admitting that she had committed some faulty thinking somewhere along the line and Blair Waldorf doesn’t make mistakes. Ever.
Eight.
A post card arrived in the mail two months after Serena left.. Not a phone call, not a letter, not even an email. Just a post card with Serena’s hasty scrawl, faded and torn at the edges. She’d skimmed the words once or twice, took stock in the I’m sorry but the abandonment still stung and her heart still hurt and she’d torn it in two without thinking twice and tossed it into the trash right next to their friendship.
That day, Blair swore she’d never take her back, but then again, she’s always been sort of shitty at making promises she intended to keep.
Nine.
Sometimes she thinks, yeah, she loved Nate, but she’s not really sold on the idea that she was actually, truly, absolutely in love with Nate. Constance’s had been hers from the very beginning, since the first day she stepped foot on the marble stairs of the Met in her perfect Mary-Jane flats, and maybe, she muses, the whole thing just sort of happened because she just kind of got caught up in finding the perfect counterpart to sit next to her on the throne she had somehow managed to obtain.
Either way it just sort of happens. A rainy Sunday afternoon when it’s just the two of them and he just kisses her. He tastes like popcorn and soda and his lips fumble against hers and she figures there was always something there, lingering below the surface like an itch she couldn’t scratch, but happily ever after wasn’t in the Waldorf dictionary of life and deep down she always thought Serena was his rightful counterpart, not her. But things change, and once upon a time she thought people could, too, so she kissed him back and that was that.
Blair kind of always knew they were better off as friends, but letting go was something she never really excelled at.
Ten.
Chuck, irrationally, scares the hell out of her. He knows her better than she knows herself, which is funny considering there’s Nate and Serena who were there first, long before him and half the time she can’t even stand to be in the same room with him. But he’s there when Nate’s not and Serena’s gone and her life is slowly, but surely falling apart.
“You’re gonna be okay,” he’s said, drink in one hand, the other on her shoulder, and she’d looked up at him, slightly drunk (vodka is best served cold with a slice of mourning for what once was), eyes wide and there was a moment where he smiled at her, and she’d leaned in close, finding comfort in his presence.
It was a rare moment, a tender one, and of course, in perfect, Chuck Bass fashion he’d ruined it a minute later by asking her what kind of underwear she was wearing, but his hand was still on her shoulder and Blair was still leaning in and it was nice.
Eleven.
The first thing Blair does when she gets to Yale (before the unpacking and the socializing, even the drinking, really) is tack a picture of the four of them – her, Serena, Nate and Chuck on her bulletin board.
It’s from her sixteenth birthday, the four of them piled on a couch, martinis in hand, like something right out of Friends and it serves as a security blanket of sorts. Sometimes at night, when she would get a little too lonely for her tastes, she’d look at it and feel more at home, more at peace.
By the end of her first semester it’s covered with notices and reminders, the edges spilling out from underneath; second semester sees it buried in the back of the top drawer of her desk. Call it adjusting, or growing up, whatever you wish (Blair just likes to think of it as moving forward) but it doesn’t even make it up the beginning of her sophomore year. It doesn’t really matter, though.
There are some things you just can’t ever forget.
Twelve.
Five years down the road and they are completely somewhat different people in the same old place. He’s still a pompous asshole, she’s still a bitch and there’s a reunion of sorts over drinks and dinner, laughter, remember when stories. Blair bumps her leg against Chuck’s under the table by accident, they share a smile. Later, a shared limo (the irony is not lost), champagne for two, a balcony.
“You look good, Blair,” he says, tipping his glass in her direction and he seems older, wiser. He’s still Chuck underneath (she knows he’s figuring out how to get her out of her dress and into bed, but then again, she’s thinking the same thing, so.) but he seems to have learned some things along the way, too.
Beaten paths are always the easiest ones to follow.
His mouth slides over hers, his fingers skin the inside of her thigh, between her legs. She kisses him and he kisses her back and it’s a lovely, familiar dance. Later, they’re a tangled mess of sighs and limbs, sedated, and he kisses her hair and she traces patterns into her skin and it feels something sort of like inevitable.
Blair thinks maybe she’s always loved him.
Summary: There are some things you just can't ever forget. Or twelve things you didn't know about Blair Waldorf.
Rating: pg - 15
Author's Notes: 1,892 words. All mistakes are mine, but the character's aren't. General Series spoilers. Feedback is a lovely, lovely thing.
One.
On her worst of days, she’d retreat back to her parent’s penthouse, stand before a mirror and pinch the miniscule, extra ounce of fat on her stomach with a wistful sigh and heavy heart, wishing to be more like Serena in all the ways that counted – longer hair, perfect skin, carefree disposition.
It’s a gradual process, the eating disorder, starts off as a diet, leads into an obsession, and finishes as a disease that eats at her until she’s a shell of the person she used to be (softer edges – hard to believe she ever had them, she knows, but they were there once upon of time – replaced by jagged ones, bright colors transformed into muted ones).
Years later she’ll tell a shrink (therapy is the in thing, didn’t you know?) that she did it because living in the shadows it stressful and the pressure to be the best version of yourself is always there, and maybe she blames Serena, just a little bit, but she thinks it was about control, too. Her parent’s marriage had been falling apart for as long a she can remember and maybe it was nice, for once, to have something that was completely in her control.
Something no one else could touch.
Two.
At first, she really did hate Dan. Losing Serena was like losing a part of herself – it was the two of them, always, since the very beginning and she doesn’t deny it, she’d took her leaving hard – and it was like Serena had returned only to be taken away again and Blair hated Dan for being the reason.
Hated him because of the way he loved her, really, because it made her realize that that was what love was suppose to be like. New and exciting, always, warm kisses and holding hands, waking up with a smile on your face and thanking God for each new day. It made her realize that even when things were good with her and Nate – and they were once, she knows, even if she can’t distinctly remember – she had never known what that was like. It made her want for things she never realized she was missing.
It’s fitting, she always thought, that the commencement of Dan and Serena coincided with the downfall of her and Nate.
Three.
She thinks about that night in the limo a lot. Chuck’s weight above her, between her legs, his hand inching it’s way under her dress, slowly, cautiously with his lips on hers. She marked the differences between him and Nate in her mind, strong where Nate’s soft, agile where he’s not. It was everything and nothing at once and her hands had skimmed over flesh and bone frantically, tracing lines and patterns like she’s done this before.
“You sure?” he asked quietly, his eyes on hers, steady and unwavering.
And Blair had nodded and whispered yes with an amount of conviction she hadn’t known she possessed and he moved over her, into her, with his lips on hers and it was something kind of out of a movie -- all slow motion and dramatic music. Somewhere down the line she’ll mark it as a turning point of sorts, the beginning of a different sort of stage in her life.
Blair distinctly remembers it as the only time she’d ever felt anything close to resembling whole.
Four.
Yale turns out to kind of not be that big of a deal. New halls to conquer, new minions to acquire. It’s kind of like a glorified Constance’s minus the uniforms but with cuter boys. Blair had worked her whole life to get to that point, to walk across the ivy green, decked out in Yale blue attire and feel some sort of gigantic accomplishment, ready to embark on a new chapter in her life and it turns out to be, more or less, a letdown.
But Blair’s not Blair for nothing and she adjusts easily. Juggles Biology with English, even some Business courses, too, and it’s odd, at first, being the small fish in the big pond with new people and new surroundings.
It’s a fresh start of sorts. Suddenly she’s not B anymore, just Blair. It’s nice.
Five.
She doesn’t really hate Jenny. Not essentially anyway.
It’s more of a matter of self preservation.
Blair wouldn’t go as far as to say she saw a little bit of herself in Little J or any other kind of half-assed bullshit like that, it’s just more or less that she recognizes the fight behind the tight smile and doe eyed look. And maybe, before everything, Blair had fleetingly thought she would have fit in nicely by her side, a loyal servant of sorts (after a complete makeover, attitude adjustment and change in last name, of course, because like hell was she going to have something actually related to Dan Humphrey in her midst twenty-four-seven) but that’s all shot to hell when she spilt secrets that weren’t hers to tell and twists the knife a little further into the Queen’s back.
Sometimes she thinks she took things a little too far, outing Asher the way she did, humiliating Jenny with the birthday party, but then again, you can’t fight fire with fire and not expect to get burned, can you?
Six.
Blair kisses Chuck in the limo, not the other way around.
Later, afterwards when she sneaks out of his room in yesterdays clothes and scrubs her skin raw, she’ll try to rationalize it with things like too much to drink, and being broken hearted, but then she’ll remember that moment, the moment that comes before every kiss where you get a five second span to either move forward or take a step back and how she had aptly ignored it.
She had known exactly what she was doing.
Seven.
She doesn’t regret it. Even after the pregnancy scandal and the scarlet lettering and dethroning, the regret never seeped into her blood. Blair doesn’t regret – admitting regret would be an admission of weakness, admitting that she had committed some faulty thinking somewhere along the line and Blair Waldorf doesn’t make mistakes. Ever.
Eight.
A post card arrived in the mail two months after Serena left.. Not a phone call, not a letter, not even an email. Just a post card with Serena’s hasty scrawl, faded and torn at the edges. She’d skimmed the words once or twice, took stock in the I’m sorry but the abandonment still stung and her heart still hurt and she’d torn it in two without thinking twice and tossed it into the trash right next to their friendship.
That day, Blair swore she’d never take her back, but then again, she’s always been sort of shitty at making promises she intended to keep.
Nine.
Sometimes she thinks, yeah, she loved Nate, but she’s not really sold on the idea that she was actually, truly, absolutely in love with Nate. Constance’s had been hers from the very beginning, since the first day she stepped foot on the marble stairs of the Met in her perfect Mary-Jane flats, and maybe, she muses, the whole thing just sort of happened because she just kind of got caught up in finding the perfect counterpart to sit next to her on the throne she had somehow managed to obtain.
Either way it just sort of happens. A rainy Sunday afternoon when it’s just the two of them and he just kisses her. He tastes like popcorn and soda and his lips fumble against hers and she figures there was always something there, lingering below the surface like an itch she couldn’t scratch, but happily ever after wasn’t in the Waldorf dictionary of life and deep down she always thought Serena was his rightful counterpart, not her. But things change, and once upon a time she thought people could, too, so she kissed him back and that was that.
Blair kind of always knew they were better off as friends, but letting go was something she never really excelled at.
Ten.
Chuck, irrationally, scares the hell out of her. He knows her better than she knows herself, which is funny considering there’s Nate and Serena who were there first, long before him and half the time she can’t even stand to be in the same room with him. But he’s there when Nate’s not and Serena’s gone and her life is slowly, but surely falling apart.
“You’re gonna be okay,” he’s said, drink in one hand, the other on her shoulder, and she’d looked up at him, slightly drunk (vodka is best served cold with a slice of mourning for what once was), eyes wide and there was a moment where he smiled at her, and she’d leaned in close, finding comfort in his presence.
It was a rare moment, a tender one, and of course, in perfect, Chuck Bass fashion he’d ruined it a minute later by asking her what kind of underwear she was wearing, but his hand was still on her shoulder and Blair was still leaning in and it was nice.
Eleven.
The first thing Blair does when she gets to Yale (before the unpacking and the socializing, even the drinking, really) is tack a picture of the four of them – her, Serena, Nate and Chuck on her bulletin board.
It’s from her sixteenth birthday, the four of them piled on a couch, martinis in hand, like something right out of Friends and it serves as a security blanket of sorts. Sometimes at night, when she would get a little too lonely for her tastes, she’d look at it and feel more at home, more at peace.
By the end of her first semester it’s covered with notices and reminders, the edges spilling out from underneath; second semester sees it buried in the back of the top drawer of her desk. Call it adjusting, or growing up, whatever you wish (Blair just likes to think of it as moving forward) but it doesn’t even make it up the beginning of her sophomore year. It doesn’t really matter, though.
There are some things you just can’t ever forget.
Twelve.
Five years down the road and they are completely somewhat different people in the same old place. He’s still a pompous asshole, she’s still a bitch and there’s a reunion of sorts over drinks and dinner, laughter, remember when stories. Blair bumps her leg against Chuck’s under the table by accident, they share a smile. Later, a shared limo (the irony is not lost), champagne for two, a balcony.
“You look good, Blair,” he says, tipping his glass in her direction and he seems older, wiser. He’s still Chuck underneath (she knows he’s figuring out how to get her out of her dress and into bed, but then again, she’s thinking the same thing, so.) but he seems to have learned some things along the way, too.
Beaten paths are always the easiest ones to follow.
His mouth slides over hers, his fingers skin the inside of her thigh, between her legs. She kisses him and he kisses her back and it’s a lovely, familiar dance. Later, they’re a tangled mess of sighs and limbs, sedated, and he kisses her hair and she traces patterns into her skin and it feels something sort of like inevitable.
Blair thinks maybe she’s always loved him.
