I was so overwhelmed with all the support my first foray into Gossip Girl fics got that I had to write another one. This is a tad AU and of course, it's Chuck and Blair centered. Chuck is the new kid on the block, arriving on the Upper East Side having spent his formative years in Australia. Blair is the Queen and Nate is her prince. Serena is M.I.A. This story is about how all that glitters isn't always as it seems. This is the set up, the prologue. Please let me know what you think!
Title inspired by the Big & Rich song by the same name. It was fitting for the direction this story will take.
THINGS I OWN: An obsession with DIY projects that never turn out like the picture says they should. THINGS I DON'T OWN: Gossip Girl.
The air smelled new.
New uniforms, new bags, new shoes, new blood.
It was the scent of the new school year and the courtyard of Constance and St. Jude's was buzzing with noise over who had spent their summer where, what they had bought, who they had slept with and who they were planning to seduce before winter break. Freshman huddled together on the fringes, surveying their counterparts who were in turn, surveying them as they passed judgment and slapped them with the labels that would follow them around for the next four years.
A town car pulled up and almost simultaneously, every head in the courtyard turned. Blair Waldorf stepped out, every shiny strand of hair curled into place and held by a big red headband, her lips the perfect shade of ruby. Her uniform fit in a way that made the plaid skirt and blazer actually look sexy and her stockings, meant to be modest, alluded to an underlying sexiness instead. Simply put, she owned the school girl look with an essence that was purely Blair Waldorf. With her new Hermes bag on her shoulder, she stepped into her kingdom.
"Iz, Hazel, Penelope," Blair greeted as she joined their huddle near the gate of the school.
"Hi Blair!" they all chimed. It was clear that they were thrilled to just be breathing the same air as Blair.
"How was your summer?" Penelope asked eagerly.
"Oh you know, I spent half the summer in the Hamptons, the other half rendezvousing in Europe – Paris, Madrid, Rome, London... The usual," Blair said with an air of superiority and a well-placed flick of her hair. The girls around her practically fell to their knees in worship. Blair lapped up the attention.
"I spent some time in Barcelona," Iz piped up. "It was wonderful."
"Where else did you go?" Blair asked with a raised eyebrow. Iz suddenly looked uncomfortable.
"I was just there for a few weeks. I um, had business in the city," she answered. "But I would love to have stayed longer. Maybe we could go there for the winter holidays?"
"That's what they call summer school these days?" Hazel asked. "'Business in the city?'"
"I didn't..." Iz started.
"Iz, we all know your father struck a deal with the headmistress," Blair interrupted her. "A remodeled, state of the art science lab and summer school to re-take chemistry in exchange for keeping your triste with the professor under wraps." Iz looked rightfully ashamed.
"Did you read the Gossip Girl blast last night?" Penelope blurted out. She had clearly been dying to bring up this topic since the moment Blair showed up.
"Which one?" Blair inquired. "The one with a photo of Mary Cheshire practically raping Douglas Machen or the one about Bart Bass and his son – Chad was it – arriving on the Upper East Side fresh from the Outback?"
"Charles," Penelope corrected. She let the satisfaction that she knew something Blair didn't show on her face for only a moment before masking it. "Apparently his father's private jet landed at JFK from Australia on Saturday night and they took a helicopter to a landing pad near the Palace. A limo dropped them off there. They're staying there until they find a suitable residence in the city. Gossip Girl failed to get a photo of him, likely due to the late hour, but I've seen the Australian paparazzi shots. He's gorgeous!"
"Please, Penelope, fan yourself," Blair snapped. "This Charles you speak of will have to earn his place amongst us, regardless of how well-known he is Down Under or elsewhere. Being the son of Bart Bass guarantees him a certain degree of status, of course, but he is no Vanderbilt."
"Meaning Archibald," Hazel muttered under her breath.
"He's a playboy according to the Australian tabloids," Iz added to the conversation. "He's notorious for bedding a different woman every night. And he's a bit of a bad boy as well. His father has gotten him out of more than one scrape with the law, usually for underage drinking or drug possession though I hear he's gotten caught with a prostitute or two as well."
"A bad boy," Hazel repeated. "I like." Blair scoffed. As if she had time for some bad boy son of one of the world's most wealthy real estate developers. She preferred her men well bred from old money. Weekends in the Hamptons were more her taste than wild binges through the city that ended behind bars.
"Have some class, Hazel," she snapped. "Come on, let's claim our spot on the Met steps before the bell rings. Hazel, make sure you sit two stairs below me. Iz and Penelope, you can take the one below mine."
Blair started in the direction of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her minions following her. Hazel looked as though she had been sentenced to a life without Jimmy Choo while Penelope and Iz appeared to have won a gold medal of some sort, simply because they got to sit one step closer to the Queen.
From her spot on the Met stairs, Blair observed the town car that dropped one Nathaniel Archibald off. She texted him quickly to tell him good morning. He turned towards the Met and waved in Blair's direction when he spotted her. She wallowed in satisfaction and grinned smugly as her the girls who made up her court squealed in delight.
Blair continued her observations of the courtyard as Dan Humphrey from Brooklyn walked into the school with a scrawny blond girl that looked like freshman meat. Nate kicked a soccer ball around with some of his buddies, a cover for making plans to meet up at lunch to smoke a joint. Blair disapproved of his lunch plans immensely, but she kept quiet, not wanting to be seen as a nagging girlfriend for her own selfish reasons. She moved to observing and labeling the freshman – as newly minted queen, it was her labels that actually mattered – but it was the arrival of a sleek black limo that stole her attention from dubbing a freckle-faced brunette with braces as 'doormat.'
Chuck Bass stepped out of his limo and stuffed his hands in his pockets, observing. He had established the day before that he was no longer in Australia. Everything from the weather to the accents were different. If he hadn't despised his father before, he did now. As if uprooting him from everything he knew just before junior year wasn't bad enough, Bart had enrolled him in what was clearly the most pretentious of schools, full of old money and holier than thou dispositions. He was more aware than ever of his new money status and he had taken pains to careful construct his guard before stepping out the limo. He was Chuck Bass and that wasn't going to change because his behavior was more frowned upon now than even the worst of it had been in Sydney.
"Hey," came a voice. Chuck turned his head with an air of boredom to find a tall, lanky blond with bangs and a matching uniform extending his hand. "I'm Nathaniel Archibald. But you can call me Nate. Everyone else does." Chuck studied this Nate guy's hand for a moment before deciding he could use the vanilla wafer at least for the day.
"Chuck Bass," he said, shaking Nate's hand. He took care to make sure his handshake was firm. He looked at it as practice for when he was out in the real world, playing ball with the people in his father's league. "Tell me, Nathaniel, are you on the St. Jude's welcoming committee?"
"No welcoming committee, just being friendly," Nate replied with a smile. "You're the new guy on campus. I figured I'd – extend a helping hand so to speak."
"Well then, how about you help me by pointing me in the direction of the main office? Apparently I'm supposed to go to class while here," Chuck drawled. A leggy red head walked by. He stared shamelessly, earning himself a grin and a wink. He would be seeing her later. He turned just in time to see the look of awe on Nate's face before he covered it up.
"Come on, I'll show you around," Nate said. Chuck fell into step beside him as they walked through the courtyard. He ignored the whispers and blatant stars. He did, however, notice the number of girls who said a flirtatious hello to Nate. It seemed he had found himself paired with St. Jude's most sought after upperclassmen. As vanilla as Archibald was, this could work to his advantage.
"So Nathaniel, give me the down low on the females to be had. Which ones do I avoid and which ones do I look to for an easy lay?" Nate chuckled.
"I wouldn't know," he said. "I've been dating the same girl since grade school." Chuck scoffed.
"Who does that?" he asked. "Both the dating part and the same girl part?"
"I'm going to guess all those tabloids weren't lying about your reputation," Nate said with a laugh.
"Oh, they were. What they printed isn't a portion of what I'm capable of." Nate studied this new – friend wasn't the word, really. He hadn't known him long enough to dub him a friend. Maybe acquaintance – of his. He had never met someone quite like Chuck Bass, so brash and forward. He was intrigued. And maybe even impressed. He didn't have the guts to be as bold as Chuck seemed to be.
"Come on, man, I'll give you the real tour of this place, not the standard 'here's the office, this is the library' business," Nate offered, changing his mind about just showing Chuck to the office.
"There's a 'real' tour?" Chuck asked in a mocking voice. Nate laughed in reply and made some sort of promise that there was more to St. Jude's than meets the eye. Chuck wasn't listening, however. His eye had been caught by a petite brunette with an obnoxious red headband.
"Who is that?" Chuck asked, nodding towards the girl. Nate followed his eyes.
"Oh her? That's Blair Waldorf," Nate answered. "She's my girlfriend."
Girlfriend. Well that certainly had never stopped Chuck Bass before. He watched as the siren strutted to them in her fall collection Manolos.
"Hi, Nate," she said with a sweet smile. She kissed him quickly.
"Hey, Blair," Nate replied automatically. Chuck could see right then that despite their years together, there were no sparks, no chemistry. Blair was on his radar and now that she was there, he had to have her. There was something alluring about her, an innocence that piqued his interest. "Blair, this is Chuck Bass," Nate introduced. "Chuck, this is Blair Waldorf."
"Nate's girlfriend," Blair added, shooting Nate a look that Chuck read as being almost hurt that he hadn't introduced her as such as she extended her hand to Chuck. Chuck took it and turned his charm up by kissing the back of Blair's hand in what he knew was the gentlemanly manner that girls like her ate up.
"Pleasure to meet you, Blair," he drawled.
"Archibald! A word!" All three turned to see St. Jude's lacrosse coach waving at Nate.
"Be right back," Nate said, jogging off. Chuck turned to smile at Blair. He decided to go ahead and start laying his foundation now. The sooner he had her under him, the better. Already, he viewed getting her in his bed as a game and he had spent less than five minutes with her.
"So, Waldorf? As in Waldorf Designs? Or the Waldorf-Astoria?" he asked.
"Waldorf Designs," Blair told him. "That's my mother. Though from what my genealogy tells me, we're somehow connected to the Waldorf-Astoria as well," Blair replied. "My aspirations, however, are more of the legal variety. Like my father."
"Or a housewife aspirations with Archibald as your last name," Chuck said, his intentions to draw a rise out of her. Blair glared at him.
"Are you implying something?" she asked.
"Is it implying if you're stating a fact?" Chuck countered. He smirked. Blair was a feisty one. He liked feisty.
"You don't know me, Chuck Bass, so I would advice you not to make such assumptions."
"I know what I saw," Chuck replied. "Nate is your 'prince charming' that will ensure your place in society and he's too naive to bother looking elsewhere." He watched as a flicker of something passed across Blair's face. It seemed he had struck a nerve of some sort but she was too well-bred to let any sort of weakness show.
"Nate and I are in love," Blair retorted. "Not that I need to defend my relationship to you. Something tells me you know little about relationships and love for that matter." Chuck snorted.
"Love is for the weak and the ignorant," he declared. "Something tells me you aren't ignorant, Waldorf, so does that make you weak?"
"You are an incorrigible ass, Chuck Bass," Blair shot at him.
"Now who's making assumptions?" Chuck countered.
"It's not an assumption if it's a fact," Blair retorted. She already despised Chuck Bass. He was too powerful in last name alone for her to take down, but she had enough power of her own to make sure his social life suffered.
"If we're stating facts then you are a snobbish elitist with a social climbing agenda. But that doesn't mean we can't rendezvous behind the bleachers in the gym."
"Go to hell," Blair spat. She spun on her expensive heel and walked away, head held high, curls bouncing.
"Only after I take you to heaven," Chuck called after her, his signature smirk on his face. He had a challenge on his hands, getting Blair Waldorf to surrender. He never said no to a challenge. It was the Bass in him.
Blair didn't turn to acknowledge him, but he saw her shoulders tense. He chuckled and looked around. The whispers and stares seemed to have grown after his confrontation with Blair Waldorf, but he scarcely cared. He planned to spend as little time as possible at this place, just as soon as he figured out who he needed to pay off to get himself out of trouble. With that in mind, he looked around for Nate, more certain than ever that the blond would be a means to an end.
The courtyard suddenly filled with the buzz of text messages arriving on nearly every phone within at least a hundred yard radius of the school. Chuck frowned. Who sent everyone a text at the same time? He reasoned it had to be some sort of school-wide text alert. Nate walked up to him, studying his phone.
"What's with the mass text message?" Chuck asked.
"Gossip Girl," Nate replied. "Sorry about that, by the way. I'm the captain of the lacrosse team and coach wanted to set up a practice schedule."
"Yeah, whatever. Gossip Girl? Who's she?" Chuck asked. This seemed to be something he needed to know to be a part of the Upper East Side he now called home. Nate's answer was to pass him his phone. Chuck read the text message.
Morning Upper East Siders! What better way to ring in the school year than by welcoming the equivalent of Australian royalty, arriving at his new kingdom in a stretch limo? Seems like C has already gotten a foot in the social order door by befriending N and sparring with Queen B, all before home room. Speaking of B, rumor has it she was spotted leaving a certain center in a certain area of town this morning. Did mommy and daddy's divorce become too much to handle for the poor dear? And surely I'm not the only one who's noticed S has yet to return to the city. Wherever could she be? You'll find out when I do. XOXO, Gossip Girl.
"Has she ever head of summarizing?" Chuck asked, handing Nate back his phone. "That was one of the longest text messages I have ever read."
"It's the first day of school. She's been quiet most of the summer except for a post here and there, but now that school is back in session, she'll be like a kid on crack, reporting everything from what we have for lunch to who screwed who in a drunken stupor come the weekend."
"Who is she?" Chuck continued with his questions as they started to walk again.
"No one knows," Nate said with a shrug. "She started up her blog a few years ago and keeps track of all of us on the Upper East Side. Just for the record, watch what you do. She somehow knows everything, whether she finds it out for herself or someone sends her a tip."
"Like some secret blogger is going to keep me from being Chuck Bass," Chuck scoffed.
"Whatever you say," Nate said with a shake of his head. They stepped inside St. Jude's and Chuck put his arm around Nate.
"How about you show me around Constance first?" Chuck asked. Nate grinned and nodded his head towards Constance.
"Right this way," he said.
Chuck is a smarmy little piece of work, isn't he? And Blair is in full power. *Sigh* I miss Season One.