1. Chapter 1 (1/1)

it's not like he's the first person to say it.

in fact, people have been saying it since they were kids, back when he'd pull her hair and she'd kick his shins and their parents would shake their heads and say "that's chuck and blair!"

he's a little ashamed to admit how happy he is that when she's through shoving fingers down her throat it's not serena or nate she's calling, it's chuck, but he knows he's been the only constant in her life since they were kids and calling anybody else would unimaginable. serena and nate would play on the jungle gym and blair wouldn't want to get her dress ruined so she'd sit impatiently, watching the two blondes together and eventually chuck made his way there too.

it's like they've been together forever already.

she calls him whenever she and her mother disagree and one day she even shows up at his hotel and they both say nothing but he does send away the most recent girl in his bedroom and invites her in.

she spends the night and they don't even kiss, and it's the most pg he's been in years, but when she asks he tells her frankly he'd prefer her in his room to anyone else anyway and when she smiles happily he's a bit proud of himself.

he calls her up too, whenever bart gets too, well, bart. and he doesn't tell anybody about her secrets and she returns the favour and it works, (and when serena leaves and she's returned to her old habits, he pulls her out of that mindset once more and helps her take over constance).

nate asks her out in seventh grade and she turns him down and he can't help smiling.

they're freshmen when he starts thinking of it as more than just them together and starts thinking of it as them together.

his stomach is fluttering or something and he wants to tell somebody but who could he tell? his father is away, has been for months and will be for even more and it's not like he'd tell him even if he were here and the only person he'd even think of talking about it with is the one person he simply couldn't even think about without the fluttering.

he watches a movie and thinking of calling her when he realises they're freaking butterflies.

freaking butterflies on acid or something.

in the end he does call her, and it's during that phone call he starts saying it too, constantly, without hesitation, "chuck and blair", and and the first time she complains that his name is first he adds a "blair and chuck" to it. because they're chuck and blair, blair and chuck and he doesn't know if she even realises it yet but they're it.

he can't imagine holding hands or going to the movies with her, because chuck bass doesn't do that even if blair waldorf does, but he figures that he'll end up doing it anyway because that girl is way too good at making him do things he doesn't want, and wears those red stockings enough to get away with laughing when she finds some sort of confirmation he doesn't remember giving that he likes it even if he didn't want it.

so yeah, he helps her take over a school and then a city, because they get bored and he's scared she'll kill herself or something, and he mentally prepares himself to hold her hand and take her to see

eakfast at tiffany's in a rented-out theatre because they're them. they can do things like that.

they will do things like that.

and he probably will end up liking them.