This was inspired by the set pictures of Blair and Nate that were released recently. The story takes place after Chuck learns of their reunion, which, going by the show's proposed timeline, should be sometime in mid- to late March.

Disclaimer: Not mine, I'm just borrowing the characters for a little while.

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When Serena tells him the news, tells him she thought he deserved to know before the Gossip Girl blast that is sure to come, he scoffs at her, disbelieving. He and Blair may be going through a rough patch at the moment, but she wouldn't dare do this, not after all they've been through.

But she keeps talking, looking at him with an expression similar to the one she wore when Lily told him about Bart's accident, and suddenly his heart clenches painfully as the knowledge that she is not lying hits him like a ton of bricks. He stares at her coldly for a few interminable seconds before walking to the bar across the room. Without stopping to offer her a drink, he pours himself a glass of the strongest scotch he can find and downs it in one swift sip.

She stares at him pityingly and tries to get him to listen. "Chuck…"

He glares at her over the rim of his glass, filled once more. She looks like she has something else to say, but he doesn't want to hear it, not if the look on her face is any indication. He dismisses her with a few harsh words and a wave of his hand and when she finally gets into the elevator to go god knows where, he lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

He stares unseeing into his glass, feeling his heart clench tighter and tighter with every passing moment. If he didn't know better he would say that his heart was breaking, but Chuck Bass doesn't have a heart, not anymore. It disappeared the moment Blair walked out of his life two months ago. It's just phantom pains, he tells himself angrily as he polishes off his second drink; they don't mean anything.

As he continues to sit at the bar, pouring himself another drink, he thinks that he should have seen this coming. She would have found someone eventually; she was never single for long – and why should she be? She was beautiful, perfect in every way that mattered. How could he have expected her to stay loyal to him when they were acting as though the other was dead? Every single (and not-so-single) boy at school must have been falling over themselves trying to get to the Queen the moment they heard the King had been banished from court. And without him there to keep the peasants at bay, it was only a matter of time before one of them wormed his way into the newly reopened position.

The thought isn't comforting and does nothing to dull the sharp edges of his heartache and anger, but he is nothing if not honest with himself.

He is just thinking what to do next, knowing that he can't drink himself into oblivion in the penthouse, not when Lily or Eric or Serena could walk in at any moment, when his phone does a familiar dance across the wooden bar, reminding him of Serena's earlier words. He stares at it blankly for a few minutes before telling himself to pick up the goddamn phone before he turns into Humphrey 2.0. He glances at the screen and is not surprised to see that he has received a new message from Gossip Girl. He is surprised to see the picture that greets him the moment he flips open his phone: Blair and Nate – Nate! – kissing in the snow, looking for all the world the perfect couple they always pretended to be.

Spotted: Queen B with her newly re-crowned Prince Charming. Who doesn't love a good fairytale ending?

For a moment it feels as though he can't breathe, like someone has punched him in the stomach and he can' t catch his breath, not until someone tells him that he's dreaming, that this isn't really happening, that he'll wake up with her in his arms and that this was all just a very bad nightmare. But as he stares at the screen, the message being replayed over and over in his mind, he knows that it's not just a nightmare, that this is really happening, that there is nothing he can do to put a stop to it as he is no longer has a starring role in the movie of her life.

He feels himself swell in indignation as he continues to stare at the fairytale picture in front of him until finally the knowledge of this complete and utter betrayal hits him full force.

Chuck Bass is not a violent person, much preferring the lasting satisfaction of systematic destruction and deviously planned take downs to the immediate gratification of physical violence, but as he closes his eyes and sees the image of the best friend and the (ex-)girlfriend now burned into his retinas, he thinks that there is nothing he would like more than to give Nathaniel a few swift kicks in the ass and a black eye or two to mar that perfectly handsome face, to make him feel just a little of the pain Chuck seems to be feeling now.

He knows that he and Nathaniel haven't been the best of friends lately, haven't really been that close since the night in his limo all that time ago, but he never thought Nate would betray him so thoroughly, not when he knows how much Chuck loves Blair (even if he can't say it to her face, not when everyone he loves is taken away from in the most painful of ways) and how hard it is for him to see her everyday and not be able to talk to her, touch her, taste her. He wants to be angry, wants to scheme and plan and ruin Nathaniel so fully that he won't be able to show his face for at least a year or two, but his anger is leaving as quickly as it came, leaving him numb save for the dull ache in the place where his heart used to be.

So he takes the bottle of scotch and his glass and retreats to his room where he will proceed to get resoundingly drunk in a futile attempt to forget that he thought he ever had a chance with the Queen of Constance while her knight in shining armor was off wooing the peasant girl and experiencing common life before taking his rightful place on the throne next to hers. Maybe tomorrow he'll start thinking of ways to win back the heart that was never truly treasured until he came along, but for tonight he will allow himself to wallow in self-pity and brood over a love that was never meant to be.

He's always known that Beauty needed a Prince, not a Beast, and despite his hopes otherwise, it seems she finally knows this too.

Fin