Jealousy Is Your Drug Of Choice

Author's Note: This story is speculation based on a couple of spoilers up through episode 8 and the promo for episode 9. Nate is living with the Humphreys and has started seeing Jenny, Chuck has opened up a bar and is now working with Vanessa. Everything else is something I have come up with in my little mind, lol.
Summary: As Chuck and Vanessa start to get closer, Nate and Blair start to rethink the current situation with their ex-lovers.

THIS STORY IS DEDICATED TO MIA, THE SWEETEST LITTLE CB FAN YOU WILL EVER MEET. Happy birthday! :D

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Chapter One: A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words

Vanessa felt her entire world crashing beneath her feet. She couldn't believe her eyes: her ex-boyfriend was locking lips with her best friend—her sister, practically—in an embrace that moved straight past passionate and directly into intimate. Like maybe they'd been doing it for a while.

Jenny broke away from the kiss and her eyes met Vanessa's gaze by pure accident. The joy in one girl's face was only matched by the pain in the other's. As hard she tried, Vanessa could not keep the feeling of betrayal from taking over her entire expression, watching in horror as Jenny's face changed from unadulterated happiness to shock and distress.

Unwittingly, she shifted her gaze to look at Nate, and the pity etched in his brow was worse than anything imaginable. Pity—not even remorse—like he himself had no feelings that could be directed at her, and instead he was worried about the ones she had left lingering somewhere.

Without a single word, she turned herself around and walked out the door without congratulating Jenny on her first fashion show, ignoring the little girl's (because, yes, she was still just a child) anxious cries of, "Vanessa, wait! Please!"

Nate, of course, didn't say anything to stop her. Why should he care?

Chuck entered his new bar, Joe's Pub, practically humming to himself. He couldn't believe how well his days had been going lately—his dad was actually proud of him for turning the bar around (and after that ridiculous fight over the "mismanagement" of Victrola, it was about time Bart discovered his son could do something right), Blair was actually speaking civilly to him for a change (no love-making yet, but he'd be sure to make progress in that area after another week or so) …And then there was Vanessa Abrams.

Never in his life would Chuck have thought he could find someone else's friendship so satisfying—well, someone else whose name wasn't Nathaniel, obviously. But, after the first few initial missteps and trust issues, Vanessa had really been there for him in the few short weeks he'd gotten to know her.

She was the reason he even had the bar in the first place, since she chewed Bart out for not trusting his own son. Chuck rolled his eyes and laughed at the memory. Only a Brooklyn-bred girl would have the balls to stand up to Bart Bass. And it was probably her 'background' that made Bart soften a little and take into account what she had to say. Because only people who have worked for what they have are worth listening to, right?

The sound of shuffling in the corner brought Chuck back to the present time, and he noticed Vanessa was already hard at work, sweeping invisible specks of dust with an insane fury. Girl never knew when to stop.

"V, we're not even open yet. You can give it a rest sometimes, you know," he chided lightly, setting down his things behind the counter and positioning himself to grab the broom from her.

Vanessa just shook her head silently and kept going at the floor as if it had just killed her dog.

Chuck leaned over to get a closer look at just what was going on, and that was when he saw the tear stains (more like streaks) running down her face. Oh, shit. He wondered if maybe she hadn't actually noticed him come in. That way he could slowly back away, leave, and pretend he had never seen this terrible vision.

But, then again, that would be a supremely pathetic thing to do. He took a deep breath as his mind raced with possibilities. What could he do? He couldn't buy her a diamond necklace, because Vanessa didn't like jewelry that wasn't created out of homemade friendship bracelet kits. Besides, he had never bought jewelry for any girl who wasn't Blair. He couldn't give her a hangover cure like he always did for Serena because he doubted Vanessa had ever had a hangover. What else could he do? Talk about it? He shuddered.

"…Vanessa, are you…" he began, slowly working up the courage to form a complete sentence. "Okay?"

Surprisingly, Vanessa dropped the broom and let it fall to the floor with a loud clang, then sat on a bar stool and looked up at Chuck. He waited patiently for her response as he poured out a nice, soothing scotch that she probably would refuse and he would have to end up drinking himself.

Vanessa actually grabbed the drink out of his hands when he was finished making it and downed it with an intensity he had never seen before. When she was done swallowing it and his eyes were done bugging out of his head, she started to speak. "I'm just so stupid. I don't know what I was expecting. I mean, of course he's going to move on. He has every right to. I shouldn't be upset. It's just…" Her eyes began tearing up again, and he desperately wished he had not thought it best to have this discussion. "Did it have to be with her? She's practically my best friend."

"Slow down there, Abrams," he said in as comforting a voice as he could manage, pulling a monogrammed handkerchief out of his pocket so that she could dab her eyes if need be. "I only understood about a quarter of the things you just said. Such as 'just' and 'I.' Everything else was kind of a blur."

She wiped her cheeks with the proffered instrument and repeated her story with a calmer demeanor. "I know I was the one that screwed things up with Nate. And now I'm the one that gets left behind, floundering, while he goes on to have a perfectly satisfying romantic life with Jenny."

Chuck scowled at the mention of the littlest Humphrey's name. Nate was ditching Vanessa for that? His best friend clearly wouldn't know a girl worthy of his time if she slapped him in the face and kneed him in the balls. "I hate to say this, but I know exactly how you feel." He had been the one to let everything go to waste with Blair, but that didn't stop it from hurting like hell whenever he had to see her with another guy or, you know, just not with him.

He looked Vanessa over and decided she was in no condition to be working this evening. Assuming a business patron stance, he straightened out his tie and declared sternly, "Well, Miss Abrams, I'm afraid we can't have you frightening the customers in this state. Why don't you take the day off?"

Vanessa stared at him incredulously. "Are you serious?"

"Of course I'm serious," he replied in his normal tone. "I'll call the limo for you. You go home, feel better. Maybe we'll get some ice cream later?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not six, Chuck."

He grinned. "I was going to offer some comfort sex around, but I think I've been rejected one too many times this week."

A few minutes later, they were standing on the street as the limo arrived to whisk Vanessa away to the depths of East Williamsburg. Before getting in, Vanessa stopped to give Chuck a thank-you hug, leaving him a little confused as to what he should do with his hands. Around the time he realized he should perhaps place them on her back—lower than her shoulders but not too low—a socialite-wannabe spotted them and snapped her very first Gossip Girl-worthy photo op.

Blair stared down at the evil little picture popping out from her phone, leering at her. Chuck and Vanessa? It wasn't possible. It just wasn't. He would never do that to her. Okay, fine, so maybe he wasn't doing anything to Blair specifically, considering she was the one who kept constantly pushing him away. But didn't he know she was just waiting for him to prove himself? To go and do something like this was the exact opposite of proving himself. She rolled her eyes. If this was an attempt to make her jealous, then he was failing miserably.

Or maybe not totally failing, since she could feel the corners of her eyes stinging with angry tears that were threatening to leak out and let the whole Social Events Committee of Constance know she cared what Chuck Bass did. But he would certainly never find out. In fact, she wasn't even going to speak to him anymore—that would teach him. If it was true, of course.

Which, obviously, it wasn't. Because Chuck would never do that to Nate (again). He had only gone after Blair because he really cared about her, right? Oh, my God, her brain froze momentarily and she felt like she had a pounding migraine. What if Chuck cares about Vanessa? What if Chuck had managed to find the capacity to love within his empty, dead soul and decided to bestow it on Vanessa fucking Abrams because Blair had been so unresponsive?

Blair quietly excused herself from the after-school meeting to go find Chuck, feigning cramps amidst all the pitying looks of girls who were chatting about the exact same photo that was haunting her at the moment. Who cared what these girls thought? Chuck Bass belonged to Blair Waldorf, and she would make sure everyone knew it by the start of school on Monday.

Saturday morning, she made her way up to the Bass-Van der Woodsen penthouse with a steely determination in her gut. She would confront Chuck about this once and for all, even if she had to give him an inkling of her affections in order to do so. This game had gone on long enough. If he had to stoop so low as to use Vanessa to make her jealous, then the poor boy was clearly desperate. She would be magnanimous and give him a chance to explain himself.

When the elevator pinged and she was let out, however, it became clear that she wasn't the only one Chuck needed to explain himself to. She may as well have been invisible, seeing as her entrance was being completely ignored in favor of an all-out brawl between Nate and Chuck. She hid herself behind the wall and listened in, the feeling in the pit of her stomach growing at an alarming rate. Why would Chuck and Nate fight if there were nothing going on with Vanessa?

"What the hell is your problem, man?" Nate yelled, grabbing Chuck by the collar of his shirt.

"The question is: what's your problem?" Chuck replied, not quite as calmly as he was wont to do. "I haven't done anything to you. You're the one who treats V like shit, and then expects her to wait around for you to make your way back eventually."

Nate threw Chuck down on the couch. "Don't you dare give me that cock and bull story again. Did you 'care' about Vanessa, too? Did she just 'need' someone?"

Chuck growled and got himself back up, but did not retaliate any of Nate's blows. "You don't even know what happened, so why don't you just calm the fuck down?" All Nate (or anyone, for that matter) ever did was jump to conclusions about him, and Chuck was pretty damn tired of it. Why should he be forever setting the record straight if people were always going to think the same things about him?

"For your information," he continued in a deadly tone. "Yes, I do care about Vanessa. More than you will ever care for any person in your life. And, yes, of course she needed someone. Just because you have the ability to forget about people and move on in three seconds flat doesn't mean everyone else works the same way. Obviously, you were too busy playing tonsil hockey with a sophomore to notice that your ex-girlfriend might not appreciate you going at it with her best friend."

Blair sucked in a breath, almost forgetting to be quiet in her shock. It was a repeat of last year, except she wasn't the person in the middle this time. So Chuck had moved on, and now she was the one left behind. Wasn't this what she wanted? For him to leave her alone and go bug someone else? She had no one to blame but herself. She was so distraught, she didn't even realize she was crying until she touched her face and felt how wet it was.

"We are so through, Chuck. As of this moment, forget you ever thought of me as your friend," Nate spat out as he made his way to the elevator, not even taking note of Blair's presence on his way out.

"I don't need friends like you, asshole!" Chuck cried out after him, punching a couch pillow once Nate was out of sight.

Blair wiped away her tears and took advantage of Nate's exit to pretend she had just gotten out of the elevator.

"Uh oh, your boyfriend looks pissed," she teased as she breezed through the living room, doing her best to hold back any unwanted tears.

The color drained from Chuck's face a little bit when he saw Blair walk in, "Look, Blair, about this whole—"

"Don't worry about it. Vanessa deserves better than Nate," she interrupted with a cheery little chirp. "Is Serena in? I was hoping we could do some shopping."

Chuck nodded and pointed to her room, then slumped down on the sofa when she had made her escape. Why did Gossip Girl have to stick her nose in everything? When he wasn't using her for his own devious purposes, he swore he'd like to rip her apart.