Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Even in the haze of discomfort and weariness numbing his senses, Chuck knew, without needing to open his burning, swollen eyes, that his wife had finally decided to grace him with her presence the moment he distantly heard the muffled sound of the bedroom door slowly being opened and then closed—deliberate gestures performed by delicate, graceful hands; nothing like the loud, brash violations of his privacy and space Blair’s maid had tormented him with all afternoon long, barging into the room whenever he had required her assistance and each time she had, disrespectfully and on her own volition, tried to persuade him to gulp down medicines and dubious hot beverages, all the while cussing him in Polish under her breath.

Chuck did not move to acknowledge Blair’s arrival, nor did he call her, determined to let her understand exactly how dreadful he felt and how much her absence and her lack of consideration for his pain had made his current situation utterly unbearable, a hellish nightmare, exhausting him and bruising him to the point that now he didn’t have any grain of motivation left to welcome her, to weakly utter her name and let such a simple act express how much he had missed her and how much he needed her. 

He had already told her what it felt like an eternity ago over the phone. He had spelled out how he could not do without her in clear statements that had been hard to concede himself; he had gifted her with his crushing defeat, yielded to her without compromise, and yet she had ignored him without much thought. 

As he listened to her soft, barefoot steps approaching the bed, Chuck uncomfortably slid further down under the several layers of blankets he was covered in and almost completely hid his face under the duvet, denying Blair the right to look at him.

At that point, his resistance was no longer a matter of pride or shame for his pitiful state. He had given up on both hours before, when he had woken up from a restless nap on the couch of his office drenched in sweat, coughing uncontrollably—his back aching fiercely on top of his every other bone and muscle screaming in agony—and realized that he could no longer keep up the battle and the act, feeling too sick and too miserable to deny himself the comfort of his home and his wife’s presence any further.

Chuck had felt angry at himself then, pathetic, as, trying to gather the energy to stand up, he had found himself caught up in imagining Blair appearing in the doorway, a feverish reply of a memory from many years ago, and coming toward him with an understanding yet willful smile on her lips, signaling her unwavering intent to take him out of there and back to their place, where he was not expected to look impenetrable, authoritarian, and perfectly in control. 

There had been no Blair entering his office and directing him out of the tight spot he had obstinately walked himself into, though; no Blair to help him up the sofa and to his desk, and no Blair saving him the trouble of pushing the intercom button and very briefly explaining to his assistant that his daily engagements had to be canceled and postponed to a later date, as she had thoughtfully offered him to do that morning, when her proposition has struck him as absurd and offensive. Again, faced with the reality that he would have had to speak to someone who wasn’t her, exposing himself to unaware, intrusive eyes and ears, Chuck had cursed himself and the excess of conceit and stubbornness that had clouded his judgment and led him to that humiliating moment, before slouching on the office chair and forcing himself make the call. 

Trying to conceal the exhaustion in his voice as much as he had managed, he had requested his car to be ready to take him back to the house without any more ado and spent the five minutes it had taken for security to warn him that the limousine was waiting for him in front of the entrance with his throbbing head piteously buried in his crossed arms.

Leaving his office and exiting the building had been agony, not so much because he had been unstable on his feet, achy and disoriented—his pacing to the elevators nothing like the way he’d normally strut through those spaces, haughty and unapproachable—but because he had felt observed, vulnerable and raw as if under a magnifying glass, sensing every person’s gaze implacably piercing through him. Even though no one had had the nerve to come near him or attempt to talk to him, that awful sensation of being scrutinized had clenched his throat with a wave of panic, control slipping away from his hold at every wobbly step he had taken, and the thought of going home to Blair had been the only thing spurring him to keep on moving. When his bodyguard had finally closed the car door behind him, Chuck had collapsed into the seats, both physically and emotionally worn out. 

He had let a couple of minutes pass, trying to calm his nerves and convince himself that interrupting his wife’s day with a phone call wasn’t an unforgivable crime of weakness and that nothing was lessening in the way he needed to hear the balm her voice was and the reassurance that she would immediately come to soothe his symptoms and unease—that horrible sense of revulsion toward how frail and helpless he felt, and the senseless yet indomitable fright losing composure that way awakened in him. 

Eventually, Chuck had reached for his phone in his briefcase, ignored the several calls he had gotten from Nathaniel and the abundance of emails and messages that required his attention, and, squinting at the screen, almost blindly tapped on the first name in the list of his favorite contacts. Too tired to hold the phone to his ear, he had put it on speaker and dropped it on the seat next to him. He had closed his eyes, leaning his head against the headrest and wrapping himself as tightly as possible in his coat as he held his breath, impatient to hear Blair pick up.

When she finally had, her whispering voice asking how he was and where he was had filled the cabin and made Chuck gulp, overcome with a conflicting sense of relief and shame. Answering her questions had been a struggle at first, frozen in agitation, embarrassment, and frustration as he had been, but when he had finally managed to confess to Blair how ill he felt, the neediness in his words had poured out unfiltered and unabashed and he had not made an effort to contain it. He had kept on trying to persuade her to come home to him until he had realized it was pointless, and that she wouldn’t have given in to the mortifying display of distress he had so desperately presented her with, nor to the intense wish to see him he could hear in her voice behind her firm tone.

In the back of his mind, Chuck had acknowledged the childishness of his behavior to an extent. He had understood that his demand to call a meeting off while it was in full swing had been unrealistic and unfair, and that, had he been in her shoes, he would have never complied with it either, if not in front of an actual emergency. However, he had been too fatigued and overwhelmed with the momentary failing of his body and with the idea of being deprived of Blair’s closeness to bring himself to take notice of his rational thoughts. 

Admittedly, in fact, none of what Chuck had done after had been even remotely reasonable or mature. His wife had not been at home when his doctor had examined him, so Chuck had responded to the man’s claims that pushing through his symptoms had been irresponsible and that he was looking at a days-long recovery that would keep him from leaving the house and doing anything productive till the end of the week by sending him away with a delirious speech about lack of respect. Blair had still not shown up after that, therefore Chuck had spent a good half hour waiting for her in the living room, sat in his crumpled suit with crossed arms on the couch, his heavy head drooping forward as he tried not to doze off and to ignore Dorota’s repeated, sharp-tongued and insubordinate attempts to wear him down and press him to go to bed, which he had eventually done only because it had come to him that his wife would have better deduced the seriousness of his affliction if she had found him in their bedroom, too ill to do anything but lay immobile in the dark. Even then, every time he had tried to call Blair, directly or through her maid, his cries for help had been met by the impassive politeness of her voicemail message, and that had been a reason enough for Chuck to decide that if she didn’t care about the fact that he was burning up with fever, then neither would he, and that he would not take anything to make himself feel better, not when nothing but her arrival would have brought him any actual comfort.

Every minute Blair had not been there had been torture, and now that she was finally back, surely intentioned to take care of him the way he had longed for her to do for endless hours of loneliness and misery, something in Chuck, a puerile rush of illogical offense and hurt, pushed him to resist her. When she silently sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned forward, trying to take a peek at him and figure out whether he was asleep or not, Chuck commanded himself to remain still, fighting the urge to pull the blankets back just enough to lace his arms around her and cling to her. 

It turned out to be a short-lived, losing game. The moment Blair placed a feathery hand on his comforter-clad shoulder, his instinct took the reins of his body, and he felt himself respond to her presence, his head turning slightly in her direction as if under a spell.

It was all Blair needed to understand that he was awake. Without speaking, she gently peeled the duvet off his face and meticulously tucked it under his chin. In a fraction of a second, her fingers were skimming slowly down his cheek, framing his face.

Chuck had meant to fight such endearments. He had planned his reaction carefully, as he lay there brooding and waiting for her to arrive; he had meant to shrink away from her tender loving care, turn his back to her, and concede her nothing but the silent treatment. However, the caress of her fingertips over his flushed skin was so delicate and so pleasant that, despite himself and his every intention to punish her tardy appearance at his sickbed with indifference, he heard himself whimpering her name, a croaked whisper that caused Blair to inhale a deep breath.

“Yes, my love,” she responded in a hushed tone. “You really don’t feel well, do you?” She guided the back of her hand to his forehead, making him shudder as she brushed disarrayed, lifeless strands of hair off his furrowed brow. “You’re burning up.” 

Oh, she was guilt-ridden, Chuck detected the instant he heard the pet name she hardly ever used to address him part her lips, and concerned. Her voice was heavy with anxiety, and her gestures were measured as if she feared he’d reject them and recoil, denying her the chance of attending to his sickness. Chuck cracked his eyes open and, ignoring the burning wave of pain the subdued lighting coming from the lit fireplace sent to his head, he let them take her in, allowing himself the long-overdue relief of basking in the sight of her. 

 Blair was gazing down at him, her warm stare brimming with worry and affection, the traces of guilty hesitation he had caught in her tone forcing her to bite her lower lip. More than anything, it was that small hint of remorse that filled him with an inevitable burst of pleasure, and he had to stop a slight smirk from tilting up the corners of his mouth. Instead, to prolong the twisted enjoyment he found in her contrition, he faintly asked, “What do you care?”

The mumbled question made Blair avert her eyes from his narrowed gaze and drooping eyelids. Glancing down to her lap, she withdrew her hand from his forehead and took in a long breath to recover from the faltering his accusation had provoked in her. “Don’t be absurd, now. Of course I care,” she whispered, “I came back as soon as I could.” 

Suddenly, watching her closely as she fidgeted with her wedding band set as she would do whenever she was tense or nervous, Chuck realized that he missed her touch and the weight of her unshakable stare on him, and whatever infantile indignation and vindictiveness for her not-so-prompt return he had felt crumpled under his exhaustion and the irrepressible sense of devotion that overtook him every time he recognized the extent of her love for him. 

Love had given her the stoicism to bear with him that morning and the patience to stay away from him while he struggled to come to grips with his situation and work through his nonsense; love had made her look after him from afar, the only way he had permitted her to do; love had pushed her rush through her schedule and led her there, sat by his side and ready to allow him that moment of insulted recrimination, no matter how ludicrous it was. 

The will to keep her on pins and needles vanished much faster than it had built up, and Chuck found no more good reasons not to snuggle closer to her. “I called you,” he still moaned, though by then his complaint held no intention of making her feel bad; all he wanted was for her to fully perceive his pure, intolerable sufferance and start stroking his hair. “Repeatedly,” he emphasized, rolling over toward her from the middle of the bed. “You didn’t answer.”

Indulging his sluggish movements and the change in his attitude, Blair drew closer to him. “I told you I was in a meeting,” she reminded him softly as she settled herself by his side, leaning her back against the headboard and grabbing one of her pillows to arrange it on her legs. Chuck took it as a tacit invitation to nuzzle against her lap, and he gingerly placed his head there. “You know very well how these things work,” she continued, covering him with the blankets that had fallen off his shoulders when he had pushed himself toward her, “and had I answered each of your calls, it would have taken me forever to finish and get home. That would have been worse, wouldn’t it?”

Uttering that conciliatory remark, Blair finally locked eyes with him again and broke into a caring smile as she saw the pouting expression he had very carefully fixed his face into. She was right, Chuck wondered, as his arm slid out from under the duvet and instinctively grabbed onto her—it made him shiver, but it was worth it. He did not tell her that, though; there was no need to state the obvious, so he just let out a faint whimper, before he stated, “Well, I was dying. I am dying.”

Blair chuckled at that, which had him frown at her. She shook her head and, bending over, she pressed a delicate kiss on his forehead, smoothing the offended creases of his skin with the touch of her lips. “It might feel like you are, but you’re not,” she replied patiently. “However,” she added, as she lifted her fingers to his temples and started massaging them in gentle, slow circles, “we do need to get your temperature down. When did you last check it?”

Chuck, who had closed his eyes and was enjoying the soothing pressure of her fingertips against his hammering headache, reasoned that a dignified silence was a better answer than the truth, which was that he had firmly refused to do anything sensible in her absence, including keeping track of his fever. He didn’t even recall what his doctor had said about it: he had been too frazzled by the drive home and too insulted by the man’s comments about his alleged recklessness to pay any actual attention then. He clutched Blair’s waist tighter and, grunting, he buried his face into the pillow.

Blair greeted his refusal to reply by exhaling a sigh that was full of resignation. Then, Chuck felt her moving, her hands abandoning his head to its tormenting ache. “No, don’t stop,” he begged miserably. “That felt good.”

She did not listen to him, certainly busy with reaching out to the nightstand and grabbing the thermometer Dorota had placed there, among other things, hours before, with a stern, commanding look that Chuck had resolutely disregarded and taken great umbrage at. He tried to protest against the need to go through the trouble of taking his temperature, but his objections were suffocated in the bud by a fit of cough erupting from his sore chest. 

When Chuck found the strength to turn his head and look up at her through half-closed eyes, Blair had the thermometer in hand and an air of determination about her that he didn’t appreciate one bit. 

“Stop trying to glare at me, Bass,” she told him, the unconcealed amusement in her voice signaling that she found his attempt to convey his annoyance hilarious rather than something to be taken seriously. “It’s not working. Plus, you know this is necessary.”

Being confronted with unequivocal proof of the outcome of his questionable conduct wasn’t necessary, Chuck thought; it was degrading. Plus, he didn’t especially look forward to sitting up; he was too cold and his bones felt too heavy and achy. “It’s really not,” he rasped, “you just want the satisfaction of knowing you were right.”

Blair eyed him slyly. “I think we can agree we’ve already established that.” 

“Further satisfaction, then,” Chuck tiredly corrected himself, bothered by the lack of proper acumen in his replies. “You’re a sadist.”

He watched her ponder over his statement for a second, as if she were debating whether she should have taken it as a compliment or as an insinuation, and then proclaimed, “While that might be true, you generally like it.” 

There was no questioning such a comment, Chuck told himself, and no chance of him being able to keep up with his wife’s quick-witted rebuttals, not with a foggy mind and fatigue impeding him from thinking straight. He groaned. “Not while I’m dying.”

Blair raised her eyebrows at him. “You keep saying that, and yet you still insist on doing nothing about it. Either you don’t actually feel as bad as you claim, or you simply don’t want to face the verdict,” she concluded, shaking the thermometer in her hold. 

The knowing smile on her lips made him scowl. She had cornered him effortlessly and with evident satisfaction, and he swallowed down the bitterness of defeat with a painful gulp. Displeased and peeved, he questioned, “You think I’m exaggerating?” 

Blair’s smug smirk softened. She brought her hand to his face and cupped it tenderly. “I don’t,” she vowed earnestly, “I just think you’re an unreasonably proud man who doesn’t want to acknowledge the exact proportion of his misjudgment.”

Chuck had been called unreasonable far too much that day. Besides, there had been a deliberate vein of challenge in her remark, a subtle dare to prove her wrong that, even if weakened, he couldn’t help but take pleasure in. He kept his eyes on her and saw triumph light up her face as, with difficulty, he let go of her to lift himself on his elbows and stretch his arm toward her, taking the thermometer from her hand. 

“There,” he said, as, sliding back and sitting up against the headboard, he turned the thermometer on and put it under his armpit, folding his arms across his chest to ease his shivering. He darted her a pointed look—one that would have been far more provocative and expressive, he regrettably considered, hadn’t his eyelids felt so unbearably weighty. “Happy?”

Blair rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, ecstatic,” she commented ironically. Still, she moved closer to him, and patted her hand on her shoulder, inviting him to rest his head there. 

Chuck felt too exhausted to convince himself not to, so he did. Blair’s velvet blazer was soft and warm under his cheek, and he closed his eyes, allowing himself a small sigh of relief.

They waited in silence for the time it took the thermometer to beep, her fingers running lazily through his hair. When the warning sound finally came, Blair’s hand beat him to the punch and found its way under his robe and pajamas before Chuck could even begin to bring himself to move. 

He did not put himself through the struggle of lifting his eyelids or stirring a muscle as she read the predictable sentence. “So?” he merely wondered, rubbing the side of his face against her arm. “How bad is it?”

Blair’s shoulder tensed under the weight of his head. He heard her inhale sharply and sensed her head shaking. “102.02,” she declared at last, her voice rigid with concern and an evident note of annoyance. “So much for ‘Chuck Bass doesn’t get sick’.”

There was a lot more she wanted to say, Chuck realized in the wordless seconds that followed, questions about why he had let it get that bad and reprimands regarding the way he had acted all through the day and his inability to look after himself, but she made the effort of stopping herself from verbalizing what she truly thought, and he felt grateful for that exercise of patience and self-restraint. It allowed him to push away the raw sense of humiliation that had inevitably caught him upon hearing that number pronounced out loud, and to embrace her, his hand groping blindly for hers. 

Blair clasped it with no hesitation. She kissed the top of his head and quietly told him, “I’ll get you a glass of water so you can take something to take the edge off this fever.”

Chuck cracked an eye open and met Blair’s fond gaze. “I can’t swallow,” he mumbled, pouting. “It hurts.”

Though she looked worried, his dramatic complaint gave her a giggle. “Now that’s one statement I’ve never thought I’d hear from the Great Chuck Bass.”

Ignoring his answer to that—a wordless, agonized moan—Blair let go of his hand and turned to the bedside table, which had been scrupulously arranged to meet the needs of a person in his state: other than the sterling silver bell he had so far used to call the maid, there was a box of Tylenol Cold Flu Severe For Day And Night Time, tissues, bottled water, a glass, and a pile of still dry washcloths, one of which Chuck had no doubts would soon end up dampened and placed on his forehead.

Aware that his wife had taken full control of the situation and that she wouldn’t accept any of his protests at that point, Chuck watched resignedly as she opened a bottle of water, poured the liquid into the glass, and extracted a pill from the red box. 

In a matter of seconds, both the glass and the pill were presented to him by a very resolute Blair. “Do you think you can manage, or will I have to hold the glass for you?” 

Chuck grunted, her daring sarcasm eliciting a feeble spark of pride that made him reach out to the glass. He sluggishly brought it to his lips and gulped down the pill, cringing as it fought its way down his throat. Then, worn out by the entire ordeal the past few minutes had been, he laid back down and clutched Blair’s waist with both arms as he settled his head on the pillow still on her lap. He let out a whimpering sound as she once again carefully draped the duvet and the blankets over his back, wrapping them around him so that they would cover him as much as possible. 

“You need to keep yourself hydrated, and food. I’m gonna have Dorota bring us some tea and crackers,” Blair announced at last, her fingers back rubbing his aching temples. “I’m assuming you haven’t eaten anything all day, have you?”

Chuck hadn’t. His splitting headache had upset his stomach and the mere thought of forcing anything solid down his aching throat had been both nauseating and painful ever since he had woken up that morning. “Not hungry,” he managed to utter in response, though the energy to speak was inexorably escaping him more and more with each passing second. He was so drowsy, and Blair’s presence and her repeated movements as she stroked his head were so calming, that all the tension that had kept him awake and somewhat alert till that point had abandoned him, leaving him placid and on the verge of falling asleep.

His wife welcomed that flimsy objection with a sigh. “I can imagine eating is the last thing you want to do,” she replied, her voice low and her tone appeasing. “Still, I’m sure being on an empty stomach is doing nothing for your headache, and you do need some strength to get through the worst of this.”

Chuck truly didn’t think he could manage to sit up again, sip the tea that would soon be served, and nibble at the bland snacks she had mentioned. However, feeling too tired and weak to convince Blair otherwise, he simply hummed his discomfort. A man had to know how to choose his battles, he remotely thought as his eyes went shut. Besides, there was comfort in realizing that he no longer had to think about anything or do a single thing. He could just rest his mind and body, and trust the fact that his wife knew what needed to be done far better than him.

“Blair,” Chuck muttered her name hoarsely later, his brow creased in a slight frown, “why isn’t Henry back from the riding club?” 

As he pronounced that question, his eyes reluctantly fluttered open just a crack and offered him the view of Blair’s softly candlelit bathroom. They had been there for a while, soaking into the bathtub she had carefully filled with lukewarm water and with the lavender oil and soap that usually did wonders for his migraines, claiming that a not-too-hot bath would have helped his temperature to lower and eased his headache. Chuck wasn’t entirely sure how long he had spent with his head abandoned against her shoulder and her hands gently stroking his arms up and down. He had completely lost track of time; he had dozed off at one point, as he silently listened to her telling him about the meeting that had kept her away from him. The way she’d talk about her job—confident and passionate, her tone radiating power and satisfaction that he was endlessly in awe of—never failed to enthrall him, and that time had been no different, with the only exception that he hadn’t mustered the lucidity to offer her the comments and opinions that he’d usually give her, knowing how much she valued them. Instead, he had just lost himself in her words and let her hushed voice lull him into a peaceful sleep.

Now that he was awake, he could confirm that Blair had been once again right: the pounding in his head had become slightly less intolerable and his mind felt a little less hazy, his thoughts more coherent. That bit of clarity, though, had made him realize that he hadn’t seen his son or heard from him since that morning, which was both unusual and alarming. Looking out of the round window on the wall at the side of the bathtub, he noticed that the sky was already turning dark, and his frown deepened as he understood that it had to be well past six. 

Blair adjusted the damp washcloth she had fixed over his forehead, turning it and dabbing it at his skin. “Your fever is going down,” she acknowledged instead of answering him, an undertone of relief in her voice. “You’re finally making sense. I was waiting for you to ask me that.” 

Chuck twitched against her body and suddenly turned his head, glancing over his shoulder to catch her gaze and prompt her to tell him what he longed to know with a sharp, demanding look, a sense of guilt and anxiety pricking at his bare chest. His fever was an irrelevant matter at that moment; all he wanted was for her to explain why Henry wasn’t home, while, at that hour, he’d usually be reading or doing homework in his room, or carrying out his piano practice routine. 

She met his questioning stare with a somewhat sheepish smile he couldn’t immediately discern. “Henry is having a sleepover at Serena’s,” she explained in a whisper. She laced her arms around his waist under the water and added, “He did call you twenty minutes ago, but you had fallen asleep, and I couldn’t bring myself to wake you. I told him you were resting.” 

An abrupt rush of irritation caused Chuck to duck his head, looking away from her and down at the thick, lush foam surrounding them. He hated the idea that his state had made Blair feel compelled to send their son away for the night, and the thought of having missed his phone call filled him with inevitable unease and a pang of remorse. He sighed, trying to drive the irrational urge to get out of the bathtub, dress up, and personally go pick Henry up from his sister’s place out of his mind. No matter how much he craved to do exactly that, his lack of strength betrayed him. Plus, Blair would have put her foot down and gone as far as physically stopping him. Disappointed with the situation and particularly in himself, he drily asked, “So he knows?”

Feeling he had tensed in her arms, Blair leaned closer toward him and kissed his temple. “About you being sick?” She let out a soft giggle. “Oh, he’s known since this morning. You didn’t think you had him fooled over breakfast, did you? Much like me, our son is a lie detector machine.”

“I did not lie,” Chuck retorted immediately, the simple idea intolerable. Despite her attempt to joke, all at once he was so on edge that he found himself inhaling a nervous breath, which made his cough flare up to the point that he had to bend over, the cloth on his forehead falling into the water with a splash. He fiercely hated everything about what was happening to him, Chuck thought as he gasped for air. He hated how sick he felt, and how little control he had over his body and the circumstances; mostly, however, he despised knowing that Henry might have spent his day worrying about him. “He must be concerned,” he panted, frustration seeping through his croaky voice. “There was no need—”

“Chuck,” Blair interrupted his frantic rambling, “Please, don’t get all worked up now. You’ll feel worse.” She let go of his waist to place her palms over the small of his back and ran them slowly up to his shoulders in a fluid, comforting motion, trying to get him to relax. “Henry said his day was great, and that Serena and Lily went to see his practice session, which was obviously a feast for his vanity. They’re going to have dinner at Lily’s after all, and then go home and watch a movie. Serena even got him a gift. He is more than fine. You, on the other hand, are far from it. You’re beyond exhausted and overwhelmed. You need quiet, and hours of uninterrupted rest and sleep.” 

Speaking, Blair had slid her hands to his chest and delicately pushed him down, luring him to lean back against her and submerge himself into the tepid water again. Chuck had resisted her at first, willing to object, but then his body had gone limp under her touch, leaving him no choice but to surrender. He let her drive most of his distress away, focusing on her deliberate gestures and the feeling of her body pressed against his, waiting for his breathing to return to a more rhythmic pattern. As soon as he felt calm enough, he settled his head comfortably against her chest and tried to make his point, “Still, you didn’t have to send him away. He’s a smart kid, he would have understood.” 

Blair reached down to his hand and grabbed it, squeezing it gently. “True,” she conceded, rubbing her thumb over his fingers soothingly. “However, he would have refused to leave your side. And we both know you would have pushed yourself way past your limit just to prove to him that you were fine. You’re clearly not, and you’ve already hurt yourself enough today.”

As Blair had predicted, getting agitated had immediately brought the furious hammering back to his temples, so Chuck just moaned and winced in pain, a more than eloquent way to admit that hers wasn’t an unreasonable claim. Very early on in his journey through fatherhood, he had made a point of never hiding anything from Henry, no weakness nor gloom; nevertheless, he was protective of his serenity and always attentive not to let anything shatter it. No matter how often Blair tried to remind him that he could not shelter him from everything and that not even his great deal of power was limitless, Chuck still tried his very best. Had Henry been there, he knew he would have behaved quite differently. For a start, he wouldn’t have been defenseless in his wife’s arms, his discomfort laid bare before her, allowing himself to be taken care of as he needed. Instead, he would have been with Henry, perhaps watching a movie to show him that he felt well enough to follow one, even though the mere idea of looking at a screen made him cringe; he would have been talking and joking, despite the necessity to close his eyes and give in to sleepiness. He wouldn’t have lied, he never did, but he definitely would have tried to mask how unwell he felt—anything to prevent concern from darkening his child’s expression and widening his deep doe eyes, anything to keep a smile on his face rather than a saddened pout. 

“I want to talk to him,” Chuck stated, more collected, and careful to sound firm enough to make Blair understand that he would not compromise on that. He glanced up at her. “I don’t want him to go to sleep without saying goodnight first. And I want to know about his day.”

It was what he’d do whenever he was traveling, or couldn’t make it back home in time to see Henry before he went to bed. It wasn’t always perfect or ideal, but it was a tried and tested habit they had both eased into when his son was much younger, and that these days was simply an aspect of what normal at times meant to them. There was no reason for breaking it, Chuck told himself: he might not be able to be his usual self, and he might sound a bit out of sorts, but Henry would be happy and relieved to get his call, and he would not deny him or himself that bit of their routine.

“I know,” Blair simply nodded her head, understanding. “Which is why I also told him you’d call him back,” she revealed in the gloating tone she used whenever she accurately managed to predict his reasoning and act accordingly in advance. It was what she had done all day long, after all, and marvelously. “Let’s get you out of here and back to bed first, though,” she said, lifting her hand to his face and tracing his jaw with her index finger. “I’ll have dinner brought up soon anyway.”

The reminder that he’d shortly be forced to eat some more uninviting food he had absolutely no appetite for was unwelcome, and the thought of moving and leaving the water that felt so pleasantly cool against his skin was nothing short of dreadful. However, instead of complaining about these nuisances, Chuck, with no more alarming thoughts to distract him from gazing at her features, ended up letting his stare linger intensely on Blair. 

Though she had gathered her hair in a bun on the back of her head, a few damp locks fell loose and disheveled over her neck; her delicate makeup was still in place, but slightly smeared at the corners of her eyes, and her lipstick was no more than a pale shade of red at that point. She looked a bit tired as well; the long day had left traces of weariness and concern in the dimples her patient smile brought out. Yet, she was practically glowing, and nothing dimmed the sheer delight her expression let show through. 

Finally alert enough to catch it, Chuck couldn’t hold back a small smirk. “It’s no surprise that you didn’t want Henry around. You want me all to yourself,” he declared proudly. “You like this.”

Blair frowned at his words and eyed him suspiciously. “I like what?”

“Me,” he replied, the word drifting into a theatrical sigh and then into the hint of a stifled cough, “dying in your arms.”

Her mouth suddenly agape with disbelief, Blair blinked. “For the umpteenth time, you’re not dying. And I do not enjoy knowing you’re sick,” she rebutted when she managed to find her voice again, though, as she said so, she promptly averted her eyes from him, looking to her side. “You’re clearly delirious. It must be the fever.”

Chuck noticed with a tingle of amusement that she was blushing, a subtle sign that, rather than finding his suggestion absurd as she had claimed, she was actually taken aback by the fact he had uncovered her most intimate feelings about his current state. He chortled weakly. It made his head hurt more, but he couldn’t help himself in front of his wife’s suddenly embarrassed demeanor. “You might not exactly like seeing me suffer, at least not in this context,” he answered, and the clarification at the end of his statement made her huff, “But having the opportunity to take care of me as I lay ‘flat on my back, helpless, tender, open, with only you to help’? Oh, you’re having a ball.”

Before she conceded herself to gaze down at him again, Blair pursed her lips to repress a smile, one that would reveal that she knew he had a point. Arching her eyebrows, she asked, “The Phantom Thread[1], Bass? Really?”

Chuck lifted their laced hands from under the water and brought them to his lips, kissing the back of hers softly. “You adore that movie for a reason,” he commented, pleased with himself. 

Though Blair didn’t pass up the chance to roll her eyes at his smugness, she could no longer stop the corners of her mouth from tilting up. “Yes, because of the fashion,” she still tried to contradict him. 

Chuck offered her one last knowing, amused glance before he closed his eyes. Languidly soaking deeper into the water, he countered, “Keep telling yourself that.”

Blair didn’t reply. She let go of his hand and groped for the washcloth under the water, wringing it out before she gently placed it back on his forehead. Chuck heaved a small, content sigh when the soft, cool fabric touched his face, and his lips relaxed in a slight smile the moment he felt her mouth skimming over the side of his neck in a kiss that would have been seductive on any other given occasion, but that, at that moment, was just tender, and a silent admission that he had indeed spoken the truth.

“Chuck,” Blair called him a couple of wordless minutes later, rubbing her hands over his shoulders as if to warm him up. “We really need to get out now; the water is getting too cold.”

Chuck groaned in response. Though by then he had goosebumps all over his arms and legs and chills shook him, he didn’t think he could move at all. His limbs were too sore, and Blair’s body was too much of a comfortable cushion. Had he gathered the strength, he wouldn’t have used it to stand up; he would have turned in her arms, placed the side of his face over her breast, and clung to her. 

Blair sighed. “You’re shivering,” she observed, and just like that, she was getting up and leaving him alone and pouting in the water, a feeble moan coming out of his mouth the moment he could no longer sense the warmth and the softness of her skin against his. 

“Warm blankets are waiting for you in bed, you know,” she tried to coax him. “You could call Henry and then take another nap before dinner.” 

Chuck could hear her moving around the room, likely grabbing bathrobes and towels, and, as he slid back in the cool water and leaned on the bathtub pillow she had left unoccupied, he found himself picturing her naked body in his mind, though, oddly enough, the thought did not stir any energy in him, nor did it persuade him to open his eyes and enjoy the actual view. He was too tired. “I could do both things in here,” he murmured faintly through chattering teeth, “I can’t move, Blair. It hurts all over.”

Blair made her way back to the bathtub, the slippers she had put on padding against the marble floor. He felt her sitting down on the edge of the tub, and then her fingers running through his hair. “I know,” she met his complaint with a soft voice, her lips surely curving in an enamored smile. “But you couldn’t,” she stated adamantly, “Firstly, your phone is currently in my possession. Secondly, you’re freezing and uncomfortable. There’s no way you’d manage to fall asleep.”

When Chuck hesitantly opened his eyes, the devoted beam he had imagined was indeed lighting up her face, and a hint of mirth graced her gaze. He was so in love with her, he wondered as he took her in, her body wrapped in a white, fluffy bathrobe, her hair down and cascading in uncombed curls over her shoulders, and she was so right, right about everything, always, and especially when it came to him, that he ended up nodding slowly at her. 

Blair cupped his cheek, and he leaned into her touch, nuzzling against her palm. “Come on,” she said under her breath, “I’ll help you get out.”

Chuck mumbled a barely audible “Okay” and then let her do exactly that, her hands on him at every sluggish, tentative motion of his aching body. She offered him a cottony towel and waited for him to dry himself off and change into the fresh, heavy pajamas and robe she had previously arranged on the chair of her vanity before she took his hand and guided him back to bed. 

The bedroom welcomed Chuck with a comforting semidarkness; the fireplace had been shut down and the only lights on were the suffused, pendant ones above the headboard. Once he was comfortably lain down under the blankets, his head resting against a pair of pillows, Blair, standing by his side, extracted his phone from the pocket of her bathrobe and unlocked it. “I’ll go take my makeup off and put on some night clothes,” she told him then, handing him the black iPhone. “It won’t take long.”

Chuck eyed her as he took it. There had been an undertone of longing and melancholy in her voice, as if the thought of leaving him alone for a few minutes pained her somehow. She didn’t want to leave his side, he realized as he observed the wistful expression on her face, not even for such a short time; however, she was aware that he treasured his time alone with Henry, and she was willing to grant him that. 

Overtaken with gratitude, Chuck looked down at his lap and felt his mouth crease in a tiny, shy smile. There was no need to say anything else. Blair bent over and kissed his lips before making her way out of the bedroom and back into her walk-in closet, silently shutting the door behind her. 

Once alone, Chuck called his son. Henry answered immediately. He was cheerful and eager to tell him all about his Monday: about his comeback to school, the horses he hadn’t seen in a week, polo, and his fun plans with his aunt and grandmother for the night. 

Chuck mostly listened, humming and offering short, amused and warm comments here and there, his eyes closed, his son’s voice an immediate source of comfort and serenity. When Henry finally asked about him, not any less determined than his mother in demanding to know how he was, Chuck felt calm and relaxed enough to tell him a slightly less harsh version of the truth: that he was feverish, and overall not feeling great, but that Blair was taking great care of him and that he was confident he’d be a bit better by the next day.

“Dad,” Henry said once his concerns had been soothed, “I have an important question.”

Chuck’s eyes snapped open in dread. His son’s “important questions” were a notorious minefield: the boy was curious and overly smart for his age, and his queries—which could be about anything, from Bass Industries to Chuck’s opinions about politics and society, from philosophical and ideological matters to the reason why Serena and Nate had divorced—tended to require long explanations that he was too worn out to embark on at the moment. Even so, Chuck cleared his throat and, resignedly,  answered, “Tell me.”

“What time did you get home, after all?” Henry asked. 

Chuck frowned, both because his son sounded deadly serious and because he had expected something entirely different than such a simple and seemingly innocent doubt. The memories of his afternoon were everything but clear, but he still tried to place them together to come up with a reply. “Around two, I guess,” he uttered. “Why?”

He heard Henry sigh. Surely, he found the vagueness of the information provided not entirely satisfying. “Before or after?” he insisted, stressing the last word sharply.

Confused as to what his son was getting at and why, Chuck did his best to recall that detail. “Before,” he concluded after a couple of seconds, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows with his fingers. His headache was once again ferocious, and thinking was a far too demanding task. 

Henry huffed. “Oh. Are you completely sure?”

Chuck was not, in fact, completely sure. He knew he had called Blair around half past one, but he couldn’t remember how long the drive from Bass Industries had taken, or how many minutes he spent in the car once it had pulled up in front of the house, trying to convince himself to get inside. However, the urgency in Henry’s strange interrogation had made him curious despite his weariness, so he rebutted with a question himself, “What is this about, Henry?”

There was a silent, hesitant pause on the other end of the phone, and Chuck let his mind draw the picture of a slightly guilty-looking yet amused Henry—the adorable expression that would cross his face whenever he caught him red-handed. “Well,” his son tried very hard to contain his laughter and eventually couldn’t, letting out a giggle, “Mom and I had a bet going on. It was about how long it would have taken you to come back. She said five hours. I said six. I was almost right.”

The revelation surprised Chuck only for a moment before he acknowledged once again how ridiculous he must have appeared in the eyes of his family that morning and how obvious his situation had been to anyone but him. At least, he reasoned with heavy resignation, Henry had given him a tad more credit. While what his son had confessed would have been extremely offensive coming from anyone else, the thought that he and Blair knew him so well pleased him, and, when he commented on the admission, his tone was affable and a little entertained. “I’m sorry to disappoint, young Bass. However, this shall serve you as a lesson: never bet against your mother. It’s a losing battle. She’s always right.”

“That’s true,” Blair’s self-satisfied voice made Chuck turn his head, and brought a lazy smirk to his lips when he saw her standing in the doorway, wrapped in pink silk and red lace, her hair combed and no trace of makeup left on her face. She had evidently heard the last part of the phone conversation and waited for the right moment to jump in. “And you’d both better remember it.”

Henry chuckled cheerfully, the sound filling Chuck’s chest with warmth. “Is that Mom?”

“Yes,” Chuck confirmed as he watched Blair pace through the room toward him. “I’m gonna put you on speaker so you can say hi.”

“Hey, sweetie,” Blair greeted their son. She grabbed a water bottle from the nightstand and, climbing in bed, handed it to Chuck with a silent, prompting glance, as she sat on her side next to him. Chuck took it reluctantly and placed the phone between them on the duvet before lifting himself up enough to take a few short sips, as his wife asked Henry whether he and Serena were already at Lily’s or on their way. Then, while their son informed them that he and his aunt had been at Lily’s for a while, he put the bottle on his bedside table and laid back down, stretching his arm toward Blair and reaching out to her hand. 

“Are you having a good time?” Blair asked Henry over the phone, as she looked down at Chuck, her fingers running through his. She scanned him carefully and gave him a smile so tender and so full of worry that it reminded Chuck of how awful he had to look. However, he no longer felt the need to conceal it, and no shame forced him to try to compose himself; longing to be as close to her as possible, he laboriously moved under the blankets and curled up to her, wrapping his arms around her. Though talking to Henry alone had been heartening and necessary, Chuck had missed his wife terribly: keeping up with the conversation and bearing with her absence had been too much to ask of his sickly body, and now he felt too dozy to keep his eyes open. He let them close as he distractedly listened to Henry talking about how glad he was that he was going to eat “actual food” instead of pizza and then declaring with great pride that, after having witnessed his riding that afternoon, his grandmother was convinced that he was ready for a faster horse, the ones at his disposal allegedly not matching his ever-improving skills and control.

Even if Chuck had maybe managed to follow half of such enthusiastic speech, and to fully grasp even less, he still caught Henry’s not-so-implicit demand, and his instinct kicked in. “I’ll talk to Grandma and I’ll see to that,” the promise came out weak and slurred. “Perhaps not tomorrow,” he clarified then, groggy, the thought of negotiating the purchase of a horse—something so vital to Henry’s safety—making his head throb, “but the day after that.”

“Perhaps next week, Henry,” Blair punctually stepped in to rectify what he had just said, a firm streak in her voice. “Once your dad feels better, and we have spoken to your instructor and discussed this at length.” 

“Alright,” Henry grumbled, evidently disappointed with his mother’s intervention. He hesitated, expecting his father to come up with one of his customary remarks about the lack of purpose in waiting that were generally a prelude to him getting what he wanted immediately, and, when Chuck didn’t, he stated, “Dad is falling asleep, isn’t he?”

Blair laughed softly at that and Chuck wondered that he would have done the same, hadn’t he been afraid that conceding himself a giggle would have made him cough violently. Henry was right. He had his mother’s empathy, and all of her ability to see through him, at times more. 

“Pretty much,” Blair remarked, as Chuck cuddled up closer to her in a silent request for her to end the phone call. There was no way to convey how much he loved his son, and a part of him longed to have him there with them, but he didn’t have it in him to keep on speaking and act cheerful, and, when Blair told Henry that it was time to say goodnight, relief washed over him. 

Henry didn’t complain, nor did he attempt to prolong the conversation. There was a night full of fun and games and spoiling ahead of him, and, when he addressed Chuck, his voice was tender and serene. “Goodnight, Dad,” he said gently. “Feel better.”

Although Henry couldn’t see him, Chuck nodded his head on the pillow, as if to reassure him. “I’ll be fine,” he promised, fighting the drowsiness to allow one last burst of energy to make him sound confident. “Goodnight, Henry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Blair mentioned something about a bouquet that had been delivered, asking Henry to thank Lily on Chuck’s behalf, and then said goodnight as well. She hung up, grabbed the phone, and turned to place it on the nightstand.

Chuck clung tighter to her. He was cold, and whatever distance between them was unacceptable. “What flowers?” he asked in a whisper, confused. Then, almost immediately, a disturbing thought broke through his somnolence, and made his heavy eyelids lift: if his step-mother had sent him flowers, then she had to know about his situation; and if she knew, he wondered if the news had reached others. He glanced up at his wife. “How many people know about this, Blair?”

Blair went back to stroking his hair, unhurriedly, her gentle touches an attempt to placate him. “Well, a few,” she disclosed, causing him to let out a displeased grunt, at which she chortled. “You’ve been quite the topic of conversation today, Bass. Speaking of which, you might want to text Nate later, and let him know you’re still alive. As it turns out, he’s not used to you not answering his calls.”

Chuck pressed his face against the silk covering her thigh, exhausted. He had meant to call his best friend back once at home, but then, feeling too bad, he had brushed the thought aside and completely forgotten about it. “He called you?” 

Blair hummed quietly. “He did,” she replied. “He wanted to come here, actually. I talked him out of it for the time being, but I think you should expect a visit from him tomorrow.”

“Did he tell you what he needed?” Chuck ignored the predictable and inevitable conclusion Blair had reached and went straight to the point, worry creeping up in his chest. Nathaniel had the bad habit of getting into trouble, not to mention the most nonsensical love life, and the fact he had so insistently tried to reach out to him, going as far as calling Blair when he had ignored the attempts, told him that, as if often happened, he was in dire need of a piece of advice.  

Blair hesitated for a moment and then snickered, “In a way. It was more me figuring it out on my own.” She sighed and finally confessed, “He didn’t want to tell me in so many words, but it has to do with Serena. Something happened between them last night.”

Even in the state he was in, the information hardly caught Chuck by surprise, but it did make him groan with frustration, not only because he didn’t feel like he could pick up his phone and try to reason with a love-stricken Nate, but mostly because he had seen that film before, repeatedly, the last time no later than a few months prior, and he knew it never ended well. Exasperated, he groggily blurted out, “How many times can a grown-up man make the same mistake?”

“Sadly not everyone gets to grow through their amour fou,” Blair commented his perhaps too harsh words tactfully, knowing they hadn’t come from a place of judgmental disapproval, but from one of genuine concern and protectiveness. “And sometimes two people can love each other while not wanting the same things, or being on the same page.”

Though Chuck acknowledged there was wisdom and truth in her words, the reality of it did not sit well with him. He was about to start protesting that Blair should have warned him of the facts before, though he couldn’t tell at what point of his afternoon he would have been able to deal with it, but then his wife bent over and, rubbing his shoulder under the comforter and sheets, she kissed his cheek, her lips cool against his skin. “Hey,” she whispered in his ear, “I didn’t tell you so that you’d get upset. I just wanted to give you a heads-up.” She guided the back of her hand to his forehead and let it linger there for a moment before slithering her fingers through his hair and down to his temples. “No more thinking about Henry, people knowing you’re sick, work, Nate, or whatever is on your mind. Everything is fine, Chuck. And what isn’t fine, you’ll handle it once you’re better,” she told him, delicate but resolute, as she slowly massaged the sides of his head. “You should try to sleep now. I don’t think your temperature is quite as high as before, but you still feel warm to the touch.”

Chuck knew that, as much as he knew that there was nothing he could do about anything she had mentioned at that moment. While he wasn’t feeling as horrible as a couple of hours earlier, his bones and head ached, and annoying chills still crept up his back. He let her reassuring words sink in and, in the soothing silence that followed them, guide him to a sense of pliant acceptance that was only tolerable because there was nothing but love in the sound of her voice, even before this frail version of him, who was powerless and passive, and not able to hold the reins of anything or take care of anyone. 

 “Lie down with me?” he asked at last, fatigue and need lacing the softly spoken plea. 

Blair didn’t need to be asked twice. She moved gently in his tight embrace and placed her head on his pillows, snuggling up to him. “I’ll wake you once dinner is here,” she informed him quietly as he took her hand and squeezed it.

“Don’t need it,” Chuck mumbled, burying his face into the crook of her neck. It was the last thing he said before, holding on to his wife, he drifted into sleep.

Hours later, Blair suddenly awoke with a feeling of foreboding and her heart in her throat. She heaved a long sigh to calm down, unsure whether she’d just had a nightmare she couldn’t recall. Her sleep had been rather light thus far; she had repeatedly slipped in and out of it, her eyes snapping open in search of Chuck in the dark, her hands reaching out to him to make sure he was there by her side and safe, and overall alright. 

He had fallen deeply asleep not long after dinner—a bowl of plain soup he had harshly criticized for its lack of flavor and character, and, much to her dismay, abandoned on his tray half full with a deeply disgruntled grunt—and never truly woken up, not even when fits of coughing had made him toss and turn in a rusting of bedsheets and blankets. Each time, he had gasped her name, gazed at her unseeing through half-closed eyes for a second as he caught his breath, and then immediately slipped back into sleep, with no cognizant of ever being awake. 

Blair had spent countless minutes watching over him, tracing the side of his face and his jaw with her fingers, smiling tenderly and not without pleasure to herself at the memory of how uncommunicative and detached he had been at the beginning of their day, and at how placid and vulnerable he had looked then, abandoned to unconsciousness, with his hair a tangled mess and pale skin, an image no one but her could have ever reconciled with the thought of him. The sight had brought a feeling of peace to her chest and eased her concern, till she had turned off all the lights and surrendered to sleepiness as well.

Now, however, wide awake and alarmed, Blair realized that there was no peacefulness in the way Chuck’s body was desperately pressed to hers. He was shuddering, his forehead unnaturally hot and damp with sweat against her neck, his arms and legs clung to her and keeping her from moving. 

Figuring out the situation and what exactly had roused her—the intuitive, immediate feeling that he was in distress and the abnormal heat radiating from his body, his breathing rapid and shallow—she opened her eyes. The room around her was pitch dark and, glancing to her side at Chuck, she could barely make up his silhouette; he was curled up so tightly to her that even the shadow of his face was concealed from her eyes. Sitting up with difficulty under his weight, she stretched her arm toward the night table and groped for the switch to turn on her bedside lamp.

The moment the dimmed, gilded glow washed over the bedroom, Blair, her back against the padded headboard, looked down at her husband and her breath caught in her throat. Though his arms kept hold of her waist and his legs were still heavy over hers, when she had moved to push herself upright his head had slid down on the edge of her pillow. The abrupt motion hadn’t woken him up, but he looked unsettled and agitated in his sleep, uncomfortable, the side of his face she could see flushed against the ivory silk of the pillowcase, his lips pursed and dry, and his eyebrows tightly drawn together in a pained frown. 

Blair took a peek at the alarm clock on her bedside table and realized that it was almost three in the morning. She was beyond tired at that point, and she didn’t want to wake him, but she could tell that his temperature had spiked, and his labored breaths made her heart race and clench with anxiety. She took a moment to reason against her hesitation and remind herself that what Chuck needed wasn’t for her to stare at him in apprehension, feeling cruel at the thought of dragging him out of his sleep, but to drink some water and take another dose of medicine that would help him rest somewhat decently till the morning; he wouldn’t get any relief from sleeping if his body was stiff and shaken by harsh shivers, battling the fever. 

At last, finally resolved, Blair slowly released the breath she was holding, and let go of her disquiet to let rationality and practicality kick in. Fevers always worsened at night and there was no use in getting too scared. She had always been extremely capable of dealing with things much more dangerous than a nasty case of the flu, she told herself to keep cool—alcohol intoxications, and near overdoses, the years she had spent taking care of teenage Serena a toughening experience, and each depressive spiral she had seen Chuck through harsh times that had made her an expert in assessing situations and thinking quickly, analytically, in acting fast, and holding back panic till the crisis had passed. She had always been the one who’d remain stoic and logical through the most daunting scenarios. This wasn’t one. She knew exactly what to do, and Chuck would be just fine.

Slightly calmer, she leaned in and, hovering over him, she brushed her mouth against his tensed brow. “Chuck,” she murmured, cupping his cheek. His skin was burning and clammy under her palm and she winced sympathetically, knowing how terrible he’d feel once conscious; still, she needed him awake, so she said, “You have to wake up.”  

His face twitched under her touch as he started to come out of unconsciousness, his eyes squeezing unintentionally as if he were in pain. Blair sighed, forcing herself to keep on; she brought her hand to his head and, stroking his hair, she moved her lips closer to his ear, and repeated his name in an undertone a couple of times, gently rubbing his shoulder to rouse him. 

At last, Chuck gasped—a brittle sound, his lips quivering as they parted—and sniffled. Then, in a reluctant, trembling flutter, his eyes opened. He looked at Blair utterly disoriented for a second, blinking, and barely managed to moan weakly before he was shaken by a horrible cough that had him jerk away from her, rolling over. 

Blair caressed his back until his chest stopped convulsing and the dry hacking drifted into uneven, panting breaths. “You’re okay,” she whispered in a pacifying tone, though the way his hands gripped the edge of the duvet made her gulp nervously. “Try to breathe slowly, in and out.”

Not without struggle, Chuck managed to follow her voice, and, once his shoulders went finally still and his breaths were no longer choked and rasping, Blair tucked the blankets he had pushed away around him and bent over to place a kiss on the back of his neck.

Chuck whimpered, the touch causing him to flinch and shiver. “I’m so cold,” his voice was hoarse and wavering, his teeth chattering. He said something about being tired and wanting to sleep after, though the words were so slurred that she barely managed to make sense out of them.

Blair pursed her lips, trying to compromise with her fierce empathy and remind herself that she was only doing what was best for him; no matter how desperate he had sounded and how helpless he looked as he tried to pull the duvet up his face, his movements lifeless and uncoordinated, she would not do him a favor by satisfying such incoherent request. Throughout the night, each time the instinctive need to check on him had broken through her sleep, she had monitored his temperature, gently slipping the thermometer under his armpit so that he wouldn’t wake, and it had never gone beyond 100.04, but there was no doubt it wasn’t as mild anymore and had to be brought down. 

“Soon,” she vowed, her fingers still running softly through his hair, trying to lure him into turning around so that he could look at her and find some comfort in the calm, reassuring smile she had fixed her mouth into. It would anchor him through the haze of his high fever, and soothe him. She needed him not to get too flustered and to remain tranquil, not to intensify his discomfort. “We just need to take care of your fever first. Then you’ll go back to sleep, I promise.”

Watching him as he made the effort of rolling back toward her, a pout on his lips and his eyes shut, Blair thought he looked much younger than his age and exactly like Henry, in the picture he had sent her the previous week to reassure her when their son had been sick, and she had been an entire ocean away from him, nostalgic and longing to cradle her boy in her arms. There was something so childlike about Chuck when his guard was completely off, pure neediness that had not been met with care when the time had been right, when he had been a kid himself, and that now would come out of him unrestrained when he was too overwhelmed to repress it or to firmly talk himself out it, reminding himself that he was a man, a husband, and a father, and not a neglected child left alone to teach himself dispassion and obsessive control so that he wouldn’t feel pain or rejection. 

When his drooping eyelids gingerly lifted and his watery gaze finally fell on her, Blair blinked to push away the thoughts that had brought a tight lump of emotion to her throat and beamed at him. “I’m sorry,” she apologized tenderly, realizing that he was somewhat alert and listening. Her fingers trailed down his cheek. “You were shaking and not breathing well. Your temperature is too high. I had to wake you up.”

Chuck grimaced. His arm came out from under the duvet and blankets and fell torpid and heavy on her lap as, in the faintest voice, he mumbled, “I feel sick.”

 “Yes,” Blair took his hand. “I can see that.” 

His admission had been blunt, wholly honest, and stripped of any excess of theatrics. He had been overly dramatic when she had come home to him, and perhaps a bit exaggerated, longing to be cared for and spoiled by her, taking subtle pleasure in her slight, twisted enjoyment of the situation—a little game between them that had been relieving not completely lacking relish—, but even that layer of compromise had come off now. There was nothing but absolute transparency between them, no veil of reticence clouding over it. 

Blair could have confessed the pride and gratitude she felt at the realization that he had finally reached that point of sheer openness, unconditional love yearning to pour out of her in touched statements of devotion, but there was no need for words when the silence between them was already so rife with tacit understanding. So she just held his hand tighter, squeezing his indolent fingers in her grasp, and, staring into his glazed, weary eyes, she told him, “Let’s make it better.”

Chuck hummed some indistinct words Blair couldn’t quite catch—it might have been “I love you” or “Don’t leave” or some further attempt to convey how unwell he felt—before going quiet and completely inert. He didn’t voice a single objection when she took his temperature and didn’t find the will to acknowledge the way she chewed on her bottom lip in worry when she scanned the digits on the narrow screen—102.56, a number she had fully expected but that still made her sigh heavily—with a sound or a glum expression. He ploddingly lifted himself up on one elbow after, his eyes closing against the dizziness that caught him at the motion, and meekly accepted the glass and the pill Blair offered him, taking short sips of water under her thoughtful reminder that, though she knew his throat was parched and burning, he should not gulp it down quickly, not to get queasy on top of everything else. Then, Chuck sank back down into the pillows and, when Blair moved away from him to get up, intended to grab a cloth from the nightstand and go wet it so that she could use it to cool off his skin, the best compliant he managed at the thought of her leaving him alone in bed was a muffled grunt.

Blair pressed a delicate kiss to his temple and whispered in his ear that she’d be right back before standing up and making her way to the bathroom. She heard him cough again from there, and the sharp noise urged her to do everything quickly: she soaked the washcloth in lukewarm water, squeezed it out, and carefully let a few drops of lavender essential oil fall on the fabric. 

When she rushed back into the bedroom, she found her husband exactly where she had left him, curled up in the fetal position; in the short time she had spent away from him, he had gotten a hold of one of her pillows, and clung to it as if it were her. He was vigilant, though, his drowsy gaze following her as she briskly paced across the room, the pale shadow of a smile lifting the corners of his lips at the sight of her, and that much was enough to ease her concern. 

Smiling back at him, Blair rested the damp cloth on the bedside table and climbed back up in bed, sitting down with her back against the headboard. Chuck allowed her to pull the pillow he had been cozying up to in her brief absence out of his arms without defiance; she crossed her legs and arranged it on her lap, waiting for him to slide deeper under the blankets, settle himself on his back, and rest his head on the cushion. Once he did, she picked up the small towel, ready to dab it at his neck.

Chuck weakly lifted his hand and grabbed her wrist to stop her. “That’s wet, Blair,” he whined, glancing up at her imploringly, “and cold.”

Blair calmly shook her head at the pleading, pained look in his eyes. “Not too cold,” she cooed. “And I rubbed some of your lavender oil on it.” Resting her hand on his face and lightly stroking his jaw, she asked, “Your head is killing you, isn’t it?” He hadn’t mentioned it yet, but it was an easy assumption to make, his fever too high not to aggravate the flu-induced headache that hadn’t truly given him a break all day. 

Chuck exhaled a small sigh, anything deeper than that too much of a risk, and let go of her to bring his hand to his face. “Yeah,” he replied, covering his eyes with his palm and rubbing them.

Acknowledging the lack of dramatic affirmations in his faint, resigned answer, Blair glanced down, somehow conflicted. The fact that he felt too ill and drained to pour out a long sequence of theatrical complaints worried her; yet, there was a poignant, maternal tenderness in her as she observed him, and the perception of the power she had over him—over his wellbeing and more in general over his happiness and his solidity—was more intense than usual at that moment, and it bore a certain undeniable delight. Chuck knew her and understood to her core, she wondered as what he had told her earlier came back to her mind and brought an unintentional smile to her lips; something in her found the renewed awareness of being the one and only blessed with the rarity and the significance of his defenseless yielding endlessly fulfilling and rather inebriating. 

“Just try to relax,” she said in a bewitched whisper, as, free from his shaky grip and aware he could not put up a fight, she fixed the covers he was wrapped in to expose his neck, and began passing the cloth over its sides and the top of his shoulders. 

At first, the contact with the damp, fluffy cotton made him moan and tremble, but, once his body got used to the cool sensation and started getting some reprieve from it, she felt his muscles losing their tension under the fabric; at last, she gingerly placed the towel over his forehead and started rubbing his temples in delicate circular motions of her fingers.

For a good half hour after that, they didn’t speak; a comforting stillness came over the bedroom, only broken by his cough when he couldn’t manage to gulp it down and stop it from making his chest shudder painfully. Switching between massaging Chuck’s head and neck, Blair let her mind wander off to the next days—days he would be home, unburdened by his frenetic workload, and their life inevitably slower, more domestic than usual, and marked by moments of attentive, tender care. In all honesty, she was looking forward to it; their schedules had been rather hectic lately, and she longed for some peace and quiet, no matter the circumstances.

She was thinking of a way she could adjust her week’s engagements to work remotely as much as possible when Chuck finally broke the silence and croaked, “I hate this.”

A placid smile rose to Blair’s lips. He sounded exhausted, but his scratchy voice was firmer now, and more lucid, telling her that the medicine was probably starting to kick in and that her efforts to make him feel better were granting him a bit of relief. “Well,” she commented, her fingertips digging lightly into the curve between his neck and shoulder, “I suppose no one enjoys being sick.”

Chuck pursed his lips and shook his head on the pillow in a slight motion that made him wince. He inhaled a shallow breath and curtly stated, “It’s not just that.”

Realizing that her words had hit a nerve, Blair sighed. She knew exactly where the harshness that had soured his reply came from, and what he meant by saying that it wasn’t the sickness itself that he found intolerable. No matter how far he had come in learning that loss of control was a part of the experience of life, that he could not hold himself to an unreasonable standard of invulnerability at all times, there was an enduring, obstinate side of him that still expected his weakness to be punished or met with repugnance, and instinctually turned each wave of need that caught him into something frightening and repulsive. Shutting those thoughts up and correcting his reactions accordingly was most of the time a very deliberate act for Chuck, one that he had to walk himself through bit by bit, and it required effort. 

She didn’t need him to explain to her that the frailer he felt, the more strenuous the struggle was, and that it had been such grappling with his own perceived sense of shame and danger that had truly knocked him out that day. Still, the fact that he had brought up the matter told her that he wished to talk about it, perhaps to justify himself, or to better elaborate on those feelings, so, willing to make it easier for him to do that gradually, she asked, “What is it, then?”

Chuck slowly opened his eyes, glancing up at her. There was a pensive shade in his fevered gaze as he stared at her, taking the time to collect his thoughts and find the push to translate them into words in her serene expression. Blair didn’t rush him. Instead, she slid her hand under the duvet and reached out to his, lacing their fingers together and letting her touch help him express himself.

Chuck lifted their intertwined hands to his chest and, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, he uttered, “My uncle made a comment this morning.”

Blair’s eyebrows rose in a surprised arc. It was a rather odd way to start any sort of meaningful conversation. “An illuminating observation, I bet,” she joked. 

“Not particularly,” Chuck answered with an annoyed, slight eye-roll, “at least not intentionally so. He was being especially obnoxious, actually, trying to convince me to go home by sniping at me”

“How typical of him,” Blair remarked, deciding that indulging her husband’s evident and still fresh indignation was a better idea than pointing out that, however undoubtedly rude and flippant, Jack had shockingly attempted to do something sensible. Then, turning the cloth on Chuck’s forehead to make sure it was still cool enough against his skin, she encouraged him to continue, “What did he say?” 

A small frown wrinkled his skin under the damp fabric. He mused over the question for a moment and then, glancing down as if deep in thought, he replied, “He mentioned that I’ve always done this, even as a child.” He cleared his throat to stifle a cough and clarified, “Trying to hide sickness, I mean.”

That was nothing new to Blair. She had clear childhood memories of how he’d show up at school evidently ill at times, and of how absurd it would seem to her that no one around him had noticed, as it meant that there had been no adult to cast a single attentive look at him. She’d find it so confusing back then, when she wondered that her dad or Dorota would always know when she wasn’t feeling well, or when she was tired, or in a bad mood. 

“I remember,” she told him quietly. Suddenly caught up in her own recollections, she found herself thinking back to how oppositional and mean Chuck would become when she and Nate would try to convince him to go see the nurse so that the school could contact his father; he’d spit out that they were just stupid, whiny kids who didn’t understand that real men didn’t get sick, and snarl the most spiteful insults at them till she was beside herself with anger and Nate was frightened and on the verge of tears. They’d leave him alone to keep up his act, then, till a teacher would inevitably realize the situation. They couldn’t do anything. They were just young children, and there was so much they were unequipped to fully grasp at that time, accustomed to their maybe dysfunctional yet loving families. “It used to scare Nate to death, you know?” she murmured, her fingers scratching his head delicately and absentmindedly. “The way you wouldn’t let us help. And then how you’d disappear for days after, and refuse to answer us when we’d call your suite at the Palace to make sure you were okay.”

Chuck’s eyes narrowed at her last statement. “I didn’t refuse, at least not when we were children,” he admitted. His tone was low and flat, and his expression deadpan in a way that made her feel disquieted. “I simply wasn’t allowed phone calls or visits.”

Blair felt herself going pale and, for a moment, she was glad that he wasn’t looking at her, his eyes distant and fixed on an imprecise point at his side, because she couldn’t control the way outrage immediately clenched her jaw and tightened her lips. To that day, sometimes the details he’d share with her when trivial everyday life occurrences brought him to reminisce still caught her unawares and made her blood run cold, especially ever since Henry had come into their life, and her understanding of how delicate and malleable a child was and of the infinite ways one could hurt them had turned acute and definite in a manner that would at times overwhelm her. More than what Chuck would confess, though, it was the way his voice would lose its every shade of emotion that anguished her, and how his gaze would become motionless and remote, as if he were looking at himself from above and describing the life of a stranger. She still could hardly cope with his way of telling her about the most horrific things as if they hadn’t happened to him, or, worse, as if they were merely ordinary and unimportant. Yet, he told her; ultimately, it was all that mattered. She took a deep breath, trying to contain the surge of bitter anger that had assailed her, and pronounced the question she somewhat feared the answer to in the calmest and most neutral tone she managed, “He’d punish you for getting sick?”

The couple of silent seconds that followed sent a chill up Blair’s spine, the fact that Chuck had to ponder over that query a testament to the appalling truth that there was no simple nor clear reply to that. “Not exactly,” he shared at last, dreadfully impassive. His struggle to speak had very little to do with his aching throat and brittle voice. “He’d punish me for trying to conceal it and making him look like a neglectful parent, which he was. Not that it would have made much of a difference: whenever suspicion rose, he’d silence it with money, or threats, or both. It was an inconvenience, though.”

There had always been whispers and rumors about Bart Bass’ unfitness, Blair recalled—murmured, falsely shocked words pronounced in an undertone at social gatherings and dinner parties the man didn’t attend, and even in her own home; she vividly remembered Anne Archibald’s hushed voice dismissing something her dad had once said on the matter with an aloof comment about how unreasonable it was to expect too much from a single father, especially when the child was such a piece of work.  She swallowed hard, gulping down the sickening feeling swirling in her stomach at the thought. “You had nannies, though,” she reasoned as if trying to find a pretext that would make the picture that was taking shape in her mind any less revolting. “How did you manage to convince them you were fine?”

A humorless, choked snort came out of Chuck’s slightly parted lips, triggering his cough. “The people hired to care for me were incompetent at best, if not completely negligent,” he went on, catching his breath. “And I was no ordinary kid, Blair. I was too intelligent for my own good, and very skilled at manipulating the adults around me.”

Though Chuck had always been brilliant and way older than his age—his old soul and his acumen and sharpness of mind the things they had connected over when they were kids—what he had just depicted was hardly a matter of skill or intelligence, Blair wondered with yet another surge of indignation; it was nothing more than a coping mechanism, acquired far too early to navigate through an extremely toxic environment. However, she choked her observation back; it would serve no purpose, and she knew there was more Chuck wanted to say. Instead, she whispered, “Why would you hide, then, if you knew you’d get punished?”

Even if Chuck looked back up at her, meeting her eyes, his face was blank and Blair felt as though she couldn’t get a glimpse of what was running through his mind. Though he was still holding her hand over his chest, his grip was weak, hesitant. It pained her deeply to acknowledge how unreadable his expression had become, and how far away from her and their life he suddenly seemed to be, even if he was he was physically in her arms, in the safest room of the home where they loved and took care of each other every day, putting dedication and commitment in the endless work in progress their domestic bliss was. 

While she might have blamed his high temperature for the way he had spaced out, she knew there was more to it, rooted pain that wasn’t as mundane as a bout of fever, and she could not stand it. She would not tolerate it. Eager to draw him out of that dullness, to guide him back to their present and their bedroom, and to tear that veil of apathy off his dark, immobile stare, Blair brought her palm to his cheek, pressing it hard against his still-burning skin.

The firm touch made Chuck bat his eyelashes heavily a couple of times, as he tried to find his way out of that moment of dissociation and focus on her. When Blair finally spied a glimmer or presence in his gaze, she forced a tiny smile on her lips. He started toying with her fingers then, counting them, one by one, the slow movement and the contact leading him further and further away from the hollow place his mind had drifted to and back to her, until, feeling him close again, Blair let his name softly roll out of her tongue, her voice one last handhold for him to grip to.

Chuck’s silence lingered as more wordless seconds passed, right up to the moment he eventually told her, “I don’t remember how it started, I must have been too young.” He averted his eyes from her then, but only for a fleeting moment. When he gazed back at her, his stare was clouded by fever but still intense and piercing enough to make Blair realize that there was once again nothing of him that she couldn’t see, no hidden corner of his mind, and to fill her with the most powerful feeling of belonging. She clutched his hand, willing him to go on.

He blinked, his fingers clinging to hers. “I suppose at some point I simply understood I could handle his irritation and the consequences that would follow better than his disgust,” he explained. “I knew that what actually enraged him was that I hadn’t been able to push through whatever sickness long enough for it to be over. It was a weakness. He was always incapable of forgiving that, in any form.” 

Though the words he had spoken had been heavy and brutal, Blair didn’t have to weigh them up. “So you became better and better at concealing,” the statement came out of her mouth before she could stop herself, driven by a sense of complete clarity. Listening to him and watching him, it had come to her that, in truth, at no point in her life she hadn’t known, if only instinctually; that the entire conversation had unsettled not because what he had revealed was surprising, but because it had been raw, adding disturbing details to what she had already gotten an idea of and comprehended through the years spent growing up with him and then loving him. 

Chuck tiredly nodded at her. “It got easier. It got automatic. Soon I was living alone with barely any supervision, and it no longer mattered.” Abruptly, his look hardened and became stony. “I hate that I still can’t help it,” he affirmed, his voice stern and rough with acrimony. “I tell myself that it’s just pride that makes me do this now, but the truth is that I feel so disgusted with myself that I freeze. And just like that I’m no longer a man, I’m a panicked child, and I act like one.”

The contempt in his tone was biting and painful in spite of the hoarseness weakening it. Blair deeply despised how cruelly hard on himself he could be, how little compassion he had for the child he had been, and how harshly he’d speak about his trauma, how intolerant and venomous he was toward it, for the mere fact it existed and had an impact on the person he was—he regarded it as a concession made to someone who had already taken far too much from him, he had told her in a few occasions. It made Blair want to fight him vehemently, to point out that there wasn’t an expiration date to the repercussions of abuse, but she knew that was a truth that, despite years of regular therapy, Chuck still failed to stomach when he was especially stressed out, overworked or overtired. She might have broached the subject tomorrow, or over the next days, when he would be more willing to greet her reasoning rationally and let it sink in; for now, however, measuring her words and drawing him to reframe his thoughts was the best tool at her disposal. 

“I think a lot happened today, including you having that reaction,” Blair uttered quietly, as she removed the cloth from his forehead. The fabric wasn’t cool anymore, nullifying its purpose, and the gesture gave her a second or two to gather what she’d say next. “However,” she went on, placing the towel on the bedside table and then looking back at him, “I believe you also did many things that say more about the man you are than the child you were.”

Chuck’s brow furrowed. “Like what?”

Blair welcomed his doubtful tone with a pleased smile that had him blink confusedly at her. “Well,” she sighed, cupping his cheek again and sliding her fingers down the side of his face, “for starters, an absurdly arrogant man looked at me straight in the eyes this morning and told me that Chuck Bass didn’t get sick, knowing full well he was speaking foolish words that would madden me.”

The provocation deepened his frown with a hint of offense. “I usually do not,” he countered, an attempt of sharpness in his voice. “And taunting you felt good. You seemed to be way too satisfied with yourself.” 

The change in his expression, the way he was scowling and squinting his swollen eyes at her trying to dart her a glare, immediately made Blair breathe easier. He was no longer withdrawn and bitter; he was coming back to her, as he always did. “That’s what people look like when they know they’re right,” she giggled, her chest lighter. Then, without giving him the time to dissent, she added, “It was an equally enormously stubborn man who stuttered out of our house after such antics, like Napoleon marching toward Russia, a victim of his delusion of omnipotence.” 

Chuck let go of her hand, then, and his arm awkwardly came out from under the duvet. “I cannot take days off just like that,” he protested, waving her comment off with a clumsy, groggy gesture that caused Blair to raise a sarcastic eyebrow at him. “I had a lot on my schedule. And things don’t go as smoothly as they should if I’m not there. You wouldn’t believe the incompetence I have to deal with on a daily basis, another reason why this situation is—”

“Speaking of which,” Blair interrupted him, seizing his hand mid-air before he could dramatically let it fall to his side while elaborating on why being forced to stay home was an extremely serious problem, “I heard that a despotic, The Devil Wears Purple[2] man brought one of his architectural teams to the brink of sheer desperation, and all before lunch break.”

Chuck groaned, rolling onto his side. “How do you know about that?”

He looked comically annoyed now, Blair thought amusedly, his lips pressed together and his eyes narrowed. She brought their interwoven hands to her lips and kissed the back of his. “I happen to have a spy who carries your surname, Bass,” she revealed smugly. “Said spy was under the impression that this man was, quoting him, ‘spreading terror’.”

“He was not supposed to contact you,” Chuck freed himself from the clasp of her fingers to wrap his arm around her waist. Though he sounded irritated, Blair found herself grinning when he rubbed his cheek against the pillow and still snugly clung to her, his eyes closing. “Besides,” he mumbled, “I was being perfectly reasonable.”

Humming, Blair leaned over. “Forgive me if I find it hard to believe, given that then such ‘reasonable’ man turned into an egocentric, melodramatic one who not only threw a tantrum at his doctor and obstinately refused to take care of himself just to show his great indignation for my absence,” she murmured into his ear, “but also spent hours tormenting my maid with his pettiness.”

The hold of Chuck’s arm on her tightened. He let out an exasperated sigh and grumbled, “She’s insubordinate and insufferable, and she treated me without an ounce of respect.”

“Did she?” Blair brushed a tangled strand of hair off his frowning forehead. “Funny you would say that, because when I came home you had tried her patience to the point that she was considering drowning her sorrows in our supply of vodka, which I think she did right after I came up to you.”

“Alright,” Chuck’s eyes snapped open again and Blair pursed her lips trying not to laugh when, turning his head slightly on the pillow, he attempted to glower at her and failed, his heavy eyelids making him look amusingly pouting rather than insulted. “You’ve made your point. Apparently, I’m not a child, but a man who does ludicrous things.”

“Yes, you are,” Blair said. She guided her hands to his face, framing it between her palms. “An obstinate man,” her fingers inched down his cheek till she reached his chin, lifting it slightly as she beamed down at him, “a pompous, touchy, absurd man, who’s way more than just the sum of every terrible thing that was done to him.”

Blair ducked her head to capture his mouth in a brief kiss, which he welcomed without opposition, the corners of his lips tilting up in a tentative smirk under hers. When they parted, he was looking up at her with such warmth and gratitude that she felt as though her heart could burst from the love she had for him, for everything that he was—the ostentatious and the concealed, the impossible and the deep, the flaws that matched her own, the child and the man, and everything in between. 

“Do you wanna know what else you did today, Chuck?” she asked, her voice quavering. 

Chuck stared at her in silence for a moment, taking in the display of emotion that had surely softened her expression, her affectionate irony giving way to tenderness and passionate pride. Then, he slowly nodded. 

The smile that spread across Blair’s face was full of fondness and relief. “You found your way out of your hiding place and panic, and you called me,” she simply answered, though there was nothing uncomplicated about what she was saying, and nothing to be taken for granted or to diminish as a given, “and then you came home.” 

A wave of coyness forced Chuck to glance down. “It took me a while.” His words got tangled in a hint of a cough on the way out of his mouth, forcing him to swallow hard. “It took me too long,” he carried on, firm though his voice was nothing but a croaky, strained whisper at that point. “I’m sorry about that.” 

Determined not to let him slip back into the self-hatred she had only just helped him to climb out of, Blair shook her head. “It took you less than it would have taken you no longer than a few years ago,” she stated resolutely, pressing her fingers against the sides of his face to draw his downcast eyes back on her. “And perhaps more time than it’ll take you at the next occasion.”

“Still,” Chuck shot her a penetrating, serious look, “I ought to apologize. I imagine it was frustrating and worrying for you.” 

Blair had too much respect for him to deny him the truth and not offer him the same honesty he had given her. “It was,” she admitted, nodding her head; however, her smile didn’t waver. “But that’s part of the game. I know there are things that I do that drive you crazy. I’m uptight and capricious, and I deal with stress by lashing out, preferably at you; and your capacity for denial is nothing compared to mine. Does any of that change the way you feel about me?” 

Pursing his lips as he lowered his eyes again, Chuck shook his head. “The opposite,” he confessed. His mouth relaxed and curled in the signature smirk she adored as his gaze found her again. “I live for the challenge.”

“And so do I,” Blair replied, her smile widening at the thought that neither of them would have ever found any resemblance of happiness or satisfaction in love any less complex than the one they shared. “So,” she went on to say, “while I appreciate the apology, I think you have to cut yourself some slack. You’re already paying a high enough price for your behavior without indulging in self-flagellation.”

Chuck looked as though he were about to say something to contradict her, to continue reprimanding himself, but then Blair saw his resolution weaken and then abandon him altogether in no longer than a second; he relented, powerless before her tenacious stare telling him that she would not yield and allow him to insult himself with further derogatory remarks. 

Docile in a way he hardly ever was, Chuck languidly lifted his hand to his face to capture hers; he guided it to his lips and kissed her knuckles, pouring all the thankfulness she could read on his face and that he was too worn out to properly express verbally in that gentle, treasuring gesture. “I love you,” he still managed to murmur hoarsely against her fingers. 

Those were words Blair heard from him every day, pronounced, depending on the moment, with a different undertone. They were the last thing he’d always tell her before falling asleep, a daily reaffirmation of commitment and devotion, and how he’d justify himself whenever she’d catch him looking at her for no particular reason, marveled, his eyes perennially glistening with surprise at the sight of her; they were what he’d fervently breathe out against her skin when they’d make love and the admired, pleased comment he’d make any time she’d say or do something cruel and conceited enough to make a devilish smile rise to his lips; they were his way of welcoming her insecurities, an enamored statement to soothe them, and of celebrating her power and her accomplishments, his worship of her an unconcealed note in the affirmation. At that moment, in the earliest hours of the morning that had witnessed his unconditional loss of control and the crumbling of his every shield, they were the words he had chosen to acknowledge the way she understood him and accepted every part of him—his complexities and his contradictions, his strength and his lack of it—and the magnitude of his need for her. 

“I love you too, Chuck,” Blair replied softly, watching his eyes fluttering close and the relief softening his expression as he let her love engulf him. 

The comforting silence fell over the room again and Blair went back to lazily stroking his hair. It was only after a couple of minutes that she asked him, “Are you feeling any better?”

It was a question that carried several layers of meaning, an open one that would allow him to answer the way he preferred, but Chuck decided to address the most obvious one with a shallow sigh. “Not really,” he muttered, lifting his eyelids just a crack to give her an imploring look that told her exactly how exhausted he was, “but I think I can sleep.”

As she had already done plenty of times that day, Blair pressed the back of her hand against his forehead and then nodded reluctantly. His skin was still warmer than she would have liked, but no longer alarmingly so; though she would have rather keep him awake longer, giving the medicine more time to lower his fever before letting him sleep, the thought made her feel sadistic in a way devoid of pleasure: the past hour or so had been tough on him in more than one way, and denying him rest struck her as pointless torture. “Alright, then,” she conceded. 

Nevertheless, determined to coax him into drinking some more water, she turned to the bedside table and grabbed a half-empty bottle without bothering to pour the contents into a glass. The trying day and night of little, troubled sleep had left her worn out as well, and she couldn’t wait to lie down by his side. She wasn’t sure she would be able to relax enough not to remain vigil, not while she still felt the need to watch over him and the conversation they’d had unnervingly lingered and echoed in her mind, but she could still find some tranquility in the mere fact that he was there, loved and sheltered by her. 

Handing Chuck the bottle and rolling her eyes at the agonized moan he let out when he realized her intentions, she urged him, “Sip, first. I don’t like how dry your lips look.”

“You love my lips,” he retorted as he glanced up at her, the shadow of a mischievous smile playing about his mouth and making an amusing contrast with his lifeless, pale features and the dark circles around his eyes. “Especially when they go down to your—”

“Charles,” Blair cut him off before he could state an absolute truth that would have made her blush and suffocated her attempt at strictness, raising her voice enough to cause him to flinch. “No drinking, no sleeping.” 

His pout of genuine annoyance caused her to chuckle, which piqued him enough to push him to abandon the pillow on her lap and slowly sit up. “You’re tyrannical,” he huffed, as, finally, he took the bottle she was offering him.

“Yes,” she replied, unable to restrain the satisfaction in her voice, “and you love it. Now, drink.”

However begrudgingly—shivers passing through him at every sip and making him mumble complaints about being too cold, being tired, and about the delight she took in torturing him—, Chuck complied.

Once Blair decided he had drunk enough and that he would not get too dehydrated in his sleep, she snatched the almost empty bottle from his hand and put it back on the nightstand, keeping a close eye on him as he regained possession of his own pillows and, laying down, curled up under the blankets on his side of the bed. She waited for him to be comfortably settled before turning off the light; she fixed the duvet tighter around him, tucking it under his chin, and then slid under it as well, cozying up to him, her back pressed against his body. 

In a moment, Chuck’s arm embraced and she felt him burying his face into the curve of her neck. He tried to breathe her in as he always did when they’d snuggle up in bed after a long day, but the attempt just made him sniffle and then sigh in frustration. “You’ll get sick too,” he whispered at last. 

The fact he had only then come to that conclusion made Blair chortle, as she took his hand and lifted it to her chest, squeezing it. “It’s not gonna happen. As a matter of fact, I’ve been religiously taking vitamin C supplements since flu season started. Some of us can’t simply rely on the fact they only catch it once in a blue moon, and we have a child, and children are walking disease vectors.” 

“What if the vitamins fail you?” Chuck hummed weakly. 

Though Blair could tell he was already falling asleep from the sound of his voice, the slight concern he managed to convey brought a loving smile to his lips. “Well, if that’s the case,” she said as he nestled closer against her, “then we’ll share this sickbed for a few days.”

His reply to that only came after a long pause. “That sounds good,” he slurred, the words mumbled against her skin in a drowsy, incoherent murmur, “sharing a bed.”

There was very little clarity in what Chuck was saying at that point—he never made a lot of sense when he was on the edge of unconsciousness, and she’d at times choose that very moment to tell him things he wouldn’t like for that very reason. Yet, she thought as she counted his breaths reminding her that he was safe, there was an undeniable truth in his statement: it sounded heavenly indeed. They would spend the morning just like that, holding each other under heavy blankets, and talking softly; Chuck would be bare before her, pliant and soft, and she would find satisfaction and a rush of warm power in his need for her, in his lack of shame for his weakness, and in being the sole witness of its display. 

It was a sweet pleasure she wouldn’t have been able to explain to anyone and that no one but him would have understood. 

“I just don’t get it,” Nate rambled, the statement a repetition of something he had already said multiple times ever since he had shown up at the Waldorf-Bass residence forty minutes ago, shouting that he was home from the foyer, before Dorota had led him into the family room, where he had found Chuck and Henry watching a movie. “Why won’t she call? It’s been almost two days.” 

Having run out of delicate answers to that question, Chuck sighed, averting his burning eyes from the large TV screen above the crackling fireplace, where Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra smoked and got drunk on champagne. He cast an indolent glance at his best friend, who was slouching back into the armchair he had claimed as his own and that he occupied without exception whenever he found himself in that room, his long, jeans-clad leg dangling off the edge of the armrest.

Acknowledging the disappointed expression clouding Nathaniel’s face, Chuck thought that he craved a glass of scotch, but that, at that point, he would have also settled for a light mimosa; it would have certainly made that conversation more bearable. Much to his dismay, though, all of his liquor had disappeared as per his wife’s strict orders, probably locked in some cabinet he was not aware of and did not have the keys to. There were corners of his house only Dorota knew about, and that terrible woman would not cave, no matter his reiterated complaints, reminders that he handsomely paid for her salary, and attempts to corrupt her. Her loyalty unreservedly lay with Blair, and Blair had dictated that he was only meant to drink water, herbal tea, or the revolting concoction she had demanded their chef to prepare, and that Chuck had been presented with at breakfast—a vitamin C smoothie, she had explained proudly when he had questioned her about his missing coffee on the tray laden with their morning meal that had been served in bed; an assault to his delicate palate, he had rephrased bitterly, a disgusted grimace on his face, which his wife had easily disregarded, attesting that the sickeningly sour and slightly slimy liquid would help him recover. 

While Chuck highly doubted that, several bottles of such terrible orange mixture had apparently been made and stocked in the fridge, and the so-called smoothie had regularly come back to haunt him throughout the day, forced on him by Blair and then served by her intimidating-looking maid, after his wife had regrettably left the house, off to lunch with his step-mother and then to work. 

A glass of said poison currently lay untouched on the small table next to the corner of the sofa where Chuck sat with Henry nestled under his arm; Dorota had arranged it there under a coaster, glaring at him while conveniently mentioning that “Miss Blair” had left precise instructions that he should “eat and drink properly”.

That was how he had ended up pecking at a bowl of repugnantly insipid oatmeal that was supposed to be light and easy on his throat, but that was doing absolutely nothing to help him regain his appetite, while his son and best friend greatly enjoyed the far more appealing snacks and drinks that had been brought to them—a French toast and fresh juice for Henry, and a cold beer and some appetizers for Nate. 

“Well, perhaps she’s aware of your expectations and she knows she can’t meet them at the moment,” he weighed in with a sanitized version of his earnest opinion, digging the spoon into the porridge and cringing at the way the grayish-brown, thick substance clung to the silver. “Serena is not incredibly skilled at the art of confrontation; you know she’s avoidant by nature.”

Nate, who was busy stuffing a brie and prosciutto shortbread cookie in his mouth and covering himself and the armchair in crumbs in the act, shot him a look of pure confusion that made Chuck breathe a longer sigh, which then forced him to stifle a cough and wince. 

Blind and deaf to Chuck’s struggle, Nate swallowed the food and poured his perplexity into a new question, “What do you mean?”

“What Dad means,” Henry decided to contribute to the discussion, his eyes glued to the screen and a not-so-unconcealed undertone of annoyance in his voice, “is that maybe Aunt Serena doesn’t know how to tell you that she doesn’t really want you two to get back together.” He paused, probably realizing that he had been too brutal, and then added, “Which is sad, I guess.”

Chuck stared at his spoon a second too long, and then let it drop into the bowl, incapable of convincing himself to bring another taste of that awful mush to his mouth. He had already endured the vegetable broth that had been his miserable lunch, eaten unwillingly under Blair’s stern gaze till there had been nothing left on his plate; it had been only then that she had left him in bed to get ready to go out. “A perfect summary, Henry,” he commented, as he sluggishly abandoned the oatmeal next to the glass of smoothie. He squeezed his son’s shoulder and glanced down at him with a weak smile on his lips. 

Henry’s gaze flashed from the screen to his father, and then to the bowl of food Chuck had left on the small table. Immediately, he frowned. “Dorota said you must eat that,” he pointed out decisively, “and drink the smoothie.”

“Later,” Chuck promised automatically, and mentally cursed himself as the word came out of his mouth, realizing that standing by what he had said was now his only option; otherwise, he would have felt endlessly guilty. Much like his mother, the kid had always had him wrapped around his finger. “I’m not really hungry now,” he explained calmly, “but I will try again in a little bit.”

Henry studied him attentively for a long moment, deciding whether that was an acceptable compromise or not, and then nodded his hesitant agreement. “I’ll remind you,” he still warned, before taking the last graceful bite of his French toast and guiding his eyes back to the screen.

Chuck smirked at the strictness in his son’s tone, finding it delightful. People would always say Henry had most of his looks and all of his personality, but his inflexible determination and his ability to care for others were things he had learned from Blair, and everything that resembled his wife was something Chuck adored. 

“I don’t think it’s like that,” Nate said abruptly, drawing Chuck’s gaze toward him. He sat bolt upright, as if driven by the thought that had kept him silent during the exchange of words between Chuck and Henry. “I think she’s just overwhelmed. We still have a connection. I felt it. She must have felt it too.”

From the TV, a tipsy Sinatra slurred, “And have you heard the story of a boy, a girl, unrequited love?” to which Crosby promptly countered, “Sounds like soap opera”[3]—a very appropriate commentary on the topic that was being discussed on the other side of the screen, far from the realm of fiction. 

The accidental yet accurate connection made Henry snicker as he echoed, “I may cry!”[3]; Nate, on his part, remained completely oblivious to it, lost in his musing. Chuck watched him lean over, the crumbs of shortbread falling from his checkered flannel shirt onto the Aubusson rug as he reached over to the coffee table to grab his beer. His brow furrowed, he brought the bottle to his lips and took a long gulp, before blurting out, “I mean! We had…” He suddenly stopped himself in the middle of his sentence, trying to explain to Chuck why he couldn’t say what he wanted to say by frantically gesturing toward his nephew; at last, he concluded, “Well, you know what happened!”

Chuck knew indeed, but the conversation was already challenging his limited energy without the speaking in code Nate was attempting—his best friend was unspeakably bad at it, and he couldn’t muster the patience to indulge him, especially because it was completely unnecessary. “Nathaniel, you know your nephew is aware of what sex is,” he answered, tiredly running a hand over his eyes. His head ached ferociously, and, between the movie playing in the background, Henry singing the lines, and Nate’s nonsense, he felt as though it was about to explode. “No need to censor yourself.”

“That’s what I was gonna say,”[3] Henry repeated the line Sinatra had pronounced just a moment before, turning to smirk at his uncle.

Nate blinked, incredulous despite the fact he had been told about Henry’s understanding of intimacy plenty of times before. It took him a second and another sip of beer to convince himself that he could actually express himself freely, but when he finally did, Chuck felt a twinge of sadness in noticing the dreamy smile creasing his lips as he declared, “The sex was awesome. It was mind-blowingly good, man. There’s no way it didn’t stir something in her.” Nate spread his arms and, to better convey his enthusiasm, he added, “We did it at the gala, during the gala, in the coatroom. It was a work event for her, yet we just couldn’t help it.” 

If Chuck knew his step-sister, the one thing the supposedly exceptional coatroom sex must have stirred in her was the wish to run away as far and as fast as possible, and he fully expected her to announce one of her notoriously unreasonably extended periods of vacation within the week. However, he once again decided against plain honesty. Not only did Nate sound and look alarmingly hopeful, making him feel guilty and cynical about his thoughts and worried about the broken heart such expression was generally an omen of, but he also didn’t think he had the mental capacity to elaborate on Serena’s tendency to choose flight over fight in front of her mess-ups. The topic was too thorny not to risk setting off the migraine threatening behind his eyes. The belligerent headache he had predictably woken up to and that had been incessantly pounding at his temples ever since was already bad enough as it was. “How 2010[4] of you,” he remarked, pinching the bridge of his nose and briefly closing his eyes. “But, alas, sex has never been the issue between the two of you, hasn’t it?”

The exhaustion that had rung through his voice made him flinch. He worriedly glanced at Henry, hoping he hadn’t caught it; fortunately enough, his son was too focused on the movie to have registered it. 

Chuck knew he was far from being well enough to be having a conversation that required him to offer sensed advice, to be watching a musical comedy that did nothing but make him cringe at the characters’ loud voices as they chanted about their messy relationships, and in general to be up and talking. In truth, while regular intakes of medicine, food, and liquids were doing their part in easing the very worst of his symptoms, he didn’t feel any less sick than he had been all through the previous day and night, and he was painfully conscious that he should be sleeping instead of straining himself, which Blair had made a point of reminding him right before kissing him goodbye, the wistful smile on her lips telling him that parting from him was the last thing she wanted to do and that, had she had the chance, she would have spent the rest of her day as she had spent the morning, watching him nap and showering him with attention. 

In fact, getting out of bed had been an act of sheer willpower, which Chuck had only managed after she had left, and mostly because he had been adamant that, coming home from school, Henry should have found him awake, dressed somewhat decorously in a smoking jacket over his pajamas, and waiting for him up and alert. 

He had been right about that. Upon arriving, Henry had run straight into the family room, expecting to find him there, and, when he had seen Chuck sitting on the couch and reading a paper (an instantly reassuring scene Chuck had very carefully made more convincing by actually trying to flick through the financial pages, no matter his hazy mind), he had unceremoniously dropped his school bag to the floor and thrown himself into his arms in a flash, giving him a tight, unusually long hug. The prolonged embrace and the way Herny had clung to him with his trench coat and scarf still on had made Chuck feel glad of his choice and proud of the fatherly instinct that had warned him that his son was a little worried and missing him. From there, listening to his sore body had become a side matter of insignificant importance, and, eventually, when Henry had taken off his coat, kicked off his shoes, and curled up next to him under the cashmere blanket Chuck had fixed over his legs, the suggestion to watch a movie together had slipped off his lips before he had been able to talk himself out of it. After all, lazy afternoons spent together that way were usually a rarity relegated to weekends and holiday seasons, and making the most of the unfortunate turn of events he was a victim of hadn’t struck him as completely unreasonable. 

At least that was how Chuck planned to rationalize his decision to Blair, when she would eventually come back and find him up and about. However, he had no way of clarifying why he hadn’t told his adult and supposedly mature best friend that, to put it mildly, he did not feel well, and that perhaps the discussion of his latest romantic crisis could have been postponed to better moments, especially because Chuck could tell from the increasingly sharp ache and cold in his bones that his fever was going up beyond low-grade again, the effect of the dose of Tylenol he had taken at lunchtime starting to diminish. 

Nate met Chuck’s rhetorical question by swallowing down what was left of his beer. “I think I should call her,” he said after, taking another appetizer from the tray on the coffee table. “Don’t you think we need to talk about it? I feel that we do. To understand where we stand, you know?”

For a man who had a thriving career in the publishing industry and who had successfully ventured into politics over the past decade, proving to be insightful and skilled at networking, Nathaniel was still remarkably obtuse when it came to matters of the heart, Chuck grimly wondered, trying to find a gentle way to make him reconsider such a rash idea. The task, however, seemed inconceivably difficult, given the way his thoughts had started eluding any measure of sharpness. The barely two hours he had spent up had worn him out, his head throbbed, and every reply that came to his foggy mind lacked tact. Besides, he didn’t think he could speak without coughing. 

Remembering his impulsive promise to Henry and needing a moment to convince his voice to function, other than to put together words that would make sense, Chuck resignedly reached for his still-full glass and commanded himself to take a tentative sip of smoothie. The liquid burned as it laboriously slid down his tormented throat, making him wince in pain and repulsion, but it did its job of soothing the dryness shrouding his vocal cords. “I think you should consider the idea of giving her some space,” he wearily told a loudly chewing Nate. “If she feels the same way as you do about your unexpected rendezvous, I’m sure she’ll find a way to let you know.”

On the screen, Sinatra and Crosby were toasting to each other’s health and wealth and shouting about liberty and fraternity at the top of their lungs, and Chuck found himself intensely missing Blair and her special talent for dragging him out of the situations he had the unfortunate habit of putting himself into when he refused to let the people he loved down—the softer side of his stubbornness, she would call it. She had gone out shortly after one p.m., and she had promised she would be home by six, which meant he only had to push through about thirty more minutes. By then, the movie would be over, and his wife would be there, ready to direct Henry’s attention toward something else and to tell Nate he had already sung his blues about Serena long enough. 

Completely missing the point, Nate grinned. “So you think she will call?”

Exasperated, Chuck resolved that taking another sip of the disgusting concoction was a less unpleasant experience than trying to make his point again. He was too tired, and Nate was obviously either incapable or unwilling to listen. 

“That, or she’ll disappear for months,” Henry chipped in, turning his head towards Nate to give him a knowing look, and saving Chuck the trouble of coming up with yet another sensible comment. His favorite song from the movie was finally over, and he suddenly seemed to be far more interested in his uncle's emotional problems than in the Grace Kelly scene that followed.

A bemused frown appeared on Nate’s face. 

“What?” Henry shrugged, glancing up at Chuck. “It wouldn’t be the first time. It’s what she does.”

Chuck placed the glass back on the coaster and cautiously nodded at his son, the motion making him feel lightheaded for a moment. He narrowed his eyes, and, trying to fight the chills that had once more started to shake him, he tightened his hold on Henry. “Yes,” he confirmed in a croaky whisper, “it usually is.”

His mouth parted in surprise and offense, Nate stared at Chuck for a second before protesting, “That’s harsh, man. Won’t you tell him it’s a rude thing to say?”

Finally too exhausted to put up a fight against his drowsiness, Chuck closed his eyes, laying his head on the backrest. “I’m sorry, Nathaniel,” he replied faintly, a flimsy laugh tickling his throat with a barely held-back cough. “I’m not telling my son off for stating the truths you don’t want to hear.” 

Nate huffed, mumbling some annoyed comment about the lack of good sense in his parenting, but the sound of Henry’s amused giggle kept Chuck from fully grasping the words. 

Then, all at once, he felt his son move and turn under his arm, as if to get a better look at him, and immediately knew that the kid had finally taken note of his crumbling composure. When he gingerly lifted his eyelids, a copy of Blair’s warm gaze was staring at him in concerned suspicion. 

“Dad,” Henry uttered, his voice quieter and softer than usual, “are you alright?” He quickly grabbed the remote control to pause the movie and rested a chilly hand on his father’s cheek, making him shiver.

Spurred by his nephew’s tender question and the sudden silence that came after, Nate, who, discouraged by the turn the conversation had taken, had in the meantime sprawled into the armchair, pulled himself back upright. For the first time since he had arrived, he took a careful look at Chuck then and made a very eloquent face, signaling that he had just realized the situation. To his credit, Chuck thought as he glanced down under the weight of the two pairs of affectionate eyes scanning him, he probably had, as at no point during the hour they had spent together had he allowed himself to voice his distress. 

“Yeah,” Nate added gently, “You look crushed. Do you need to lie down?”

Chuck wanted to answer that he was not alright and that he did need the warmth and comfort of his bed so that he could sleep his fever off, but he couldn’t. Neither Henry nor Nate was Blair, and while he was okay with them knowing he was sick, he struggled to accept his inability to give them what they needed regardless of his unfortunate current condition. Henry was his son, to cherish and protect, and Nate was the brother he had chosen, and he had already failed them both the day before, making himself unavailable in one way or another. 

He was about to tell Henry that there was no need to stop watching the movie and that it was perfectly okay to keep on trying to convince his uncle Nate not to make a fool of himself, but he didn’t have the time to, because that was the moment his wife waltzed into the room, announcing herself by exclaiming, “What are you doing up, Bass?”

Though Blair had meant to reprimand him and though he knew he somewhat deserved the shade of exasperation in her tone, the most intense sense of relief overtook Chuck, his downcast eyes drawn from the rug to the doorway by the sound of her voice, and, when she finally came into his view, he found himself beaming at her. She didn’t look any less unblemished than she had when she had left hours before, wrapped in a black and silver tweed ensemble and with her curls coiffed in an elaborate hairdo, but she seemed more than just a little flustered, having probably hurried back home, and definitely not pleased with the scene before her, her poise rigid as she stared at her family under tightly furrowed eyebrows. Somehow, Chuck found the thought she would soon use all of that firmness and pique to lead him away from company and back to bed immensely comforting.

“He’s doing his I’m-not-sick thing again,” Nate proclaimed, shaking his head as Blair marched into the room and toward the couch. “Or at least the I’m-not-too-sick version of it.”

“And you’ve only just realized it, Nate?” she questioned him pointedly, a fierce glint in the slight glare she shot him.

Happy not to be the one she was scolding and inevitably flattered by the way she was defending him, Chuck remained silent, smirking lazily when Nate blinked at the accusation and then, opening his eyes wide, replied, “They were already watching that and laughing when I got here! I figured he was fine enough. Besides, you said I could visit when I asked you this morning!”

Blair halted her steps behind the armchair, took a peek at the frozen image of Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly slow dancing by the pool on the screen, and, propping her hands on her hips, sighed. “I specifically recall telling you to stop by to make sure this,” she pointed her fingers at Chuck and Henry and then at the TV, “wouldn’t happen. And yet there he is, my ill husband, pushing himself through a viewing of High Society.” Despite her irritation, she still bent over to kiss Nate’s cheek, which made him chuckle, understanding he was forgiven.

“Not because I asked!” Henry butted in, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling at his mother, clearly outraged at the idea that she might consider him responsible. “It’s Dad who proposed it. He even chose the movie. And he never said he was feeling too sick.” Then, he turned his head to look at Chuck and, with a vein of uncertainty in his tone, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell us?”

Chuck felt Blair’s gaze on him, tender and yet carrying some frustration, and Nate’s resigned and somewhat entertained one, but he ignored both. He laced his arms around his son, embracing him, and, locking eyes with him and offering him a reassuring smile, he answered, “Because it’s not too bad.”

In truth, it was. However, the white lie was an exceptional compromise Chuck made with himself because the last thing he wanted was for Henry to feel bad about the couple of hours they had spent together, especially because, though at that point he did feel at death’s door, he did not regret them one bit—they had been serene, caring hours, and, Nathaniel’s blathering and the discomfort weakening his body aside, not at all unpleasant.

“Henry,” Blair interrupted their son before he could counter Chuck’s claim with a doubtful remark, “I’m certain you have homework to do, don’t you?”

Henry looked away from his father to roll his eyes at Blair. “It’s just algebra,” he grumbled. “Meaning it’s a no-brainer.”

Though Henry’s objection made her smirk with a hint of satisfaction, she crossed her arms. “Regardless,” she said, “it needs to be done. And your father needs to go to bed.” Resolute, she glanced down at Nate, and, her eyebrows raised, she suggested, “Why don’t you help your nephew with the homework? I seem to recall you adore algebra, don’t you?”

Chuck watched as a look of pure terror crossed Nate’s face. He had always despised numbers, and Blair was openly just mocking him—besides, while Henry didn’t need any help, he certainly wouldn’t pass on the occasion to show off his amazing understanding of the concepts and to enjoy the way such comprehension was out of his uncle’s reach.

Despite the daunting scenario of being ridiculed by his nephew, Nate still found enough perceptiveness in himself to gather that what Blair wanted was for her and Chuck to be left alone, so he clumsily stood up and asked Henry to follow him upstairs. It took a little bit of convincing, as Henry didn’t seem all that inclined to let Chuck out of his sight, and a promise from Nate that he would join him in a Monopoly game once the algebra would be dealt with (“Let me know how long it takes you to bankrupt him this time,” Chuck whispered in his son’s ear before the boy slid down the couch, making him laugh), but, eventually, both of them made their way out of the room.

“I would make a joke about masochism,” Blair declared once Nate respectfully closed the door behind him, standing in front of the couch and staring down at Chuck, “but you look way too miserable to appreciate the irony.”

Chuck just closed his eyes. He was indeed too shattered for confrontation, or for being lectured about what he should have or shouldn’t have done during the few hours she had left him alone. He only wanted to rest his aching head on her lap for a few minutes, just to find the energy to trudge back upstairs. He was sure Blair would not let him sleep there, no matter how delightful the idea suddenly sounded, now that the room was peaceful, and no one was singing, or pouring their feelings out to him—something about it not being warm enough, he wondered, and the way his back always rebelled when he fell asleep on anything less comfortable than a high-quality mattress, whether he was sick or not.

Blair finally sat down next to him. He soon felt her hand sliding up his chest and over the lapels of his burgundy smoking jacket. “You have warmer robes,” she pointed out with a sigh, “more comfortable robes. If you really needed to get out of bed, you could have at least put on something heavier.”

“This is dignified,” Chuck muttered, the criticism of his fashion choices making him frown despite the fact that he was indeed freezing. As if to deride his attempt at a proud rebuttal, his body decided that was the most convenient moment to start trembling, making him whimper and then cough as a result.

His evident anguish shushed the mockery of his priorities Blair must have had on the tip of her tongue—not a difficult assumption for him to make, since she was always ready to state that he was unreasonably vain and absurdly obsessed with the idea of refinement. Instead of replying, she put her arm around his shoulders, gently pushing him and prompting him to lie down. 

Her silence and her careful gesture, the way she was once again fussing over him, touching him as if he were made of brittle glass, told Chuck that she was done with the joking and the rebuking, and that was what convinced him to indulge the pressure of her hands and curl up, placing his head on her legs with a pained moan, his eyes still shut. 

In a moment, he felt the cashmere blanket wrapping him, adjusted over his body to cover him entirely by a very attentive Blair. Finally, her fingers found their way to his forehead, checking his temperature. “I was hoping you’d feel a bit better by now,” she confessed in a low voice, as she started stroking his hair, “but it doesn’t seem like you are. You’re feverish again.”

“I told you I was dying,” Chuck mumbled in response, nuzzling against her skirt; the fabric had some metallic embellishments woven into it, but he hadn’t shaved since the previous morning, and the shadow of a beard kept him from finding it scratchy. “Or, at least, it feels like it.”

Blair leaned over, kissing his temple. “I’m sure your eventful afternoon did not help,” she murmured in his ear. “It seems like you cannot be left alone to care for yourself. You can’t settle down on your own, you’re too stubborn. You demand too much of yourself. It’s only in front of me you relent.”

There was suddenly a very distinguishable note of pleasure in her voice that pushed Chuck to slowly open his eyes; when he did, the look on her face was one of bliss and pride. 

A smirk immediately creased his lips. “Kiss your sick man, then,” he replied hoarsely, lifting his hand to her chin to capture it, “And take him to bed.”

A victorious twinkle in her gaze, Blair did just that, and she continued to do so throughout the next days. She kept kissing his pain away, keeping him in bed, taking away most of his control, and making him yield to her care over and over, to her burning desire to see him recover at her hands—and at her hands only.