Title: "Welcome to the Occupation (Or Four Times Chuck and Jenny Don't Have Sex and One Time They Do)"
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: Jenny/Chuck
Spoiler:"Seder Anything"
Length: one-shot
Summary: Jenny learns to forgive even as she never quite forgets.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs
Author's Note: Per usual, I have a several other fics to work on but this idea jumped into my head after this week's episode and I had write. I actually tackled this plot once in First Breath After the Coma but I decided to try again and this time more in canon. It's on the darker side but that's what fic is for, right? Title and cut of Cold War Kids. Enjoy.
I. A Kiss on the Lips
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You're fifteen and never been kissed.
Like everything else in your life, it's about to change; like most rights of passage, it's a night to remember.
A party is just a party except when it's thrown by Blair Waldorf. The players all know each other and you're new to their game (will always be new you later learn). You're exposed before them in your homespun dress and last season's shoes and pray you can learn the moves fast enough to keep up.
Nate is their king but Chuck is the one pulling the strings and your heart skips an extra beat when his eyes lock with yours across the room. The music is loud but with each step he takes you can hear your heart beat through the cage of your chest, a wild pitter-patter that slams against your ribs.
You're fifteen and flirted with a few boys but certainly never a boy like this.
There's a devilish glint in his eyes and a Cheshire's grin parting his lips and when he finally speaks there's little more you can do than melt into a pool of girlish goo at his feet. His fingers reach out and thread through yours, thumb stroking a soft circle across the back of your hand.
"I'm Chuck," he breathes and you're the cheerleader and he's the quarterback and you're first kiss comes after the coronation on prom night. It's like every fantasy every teenage girl could ever have but instead it's your life.
You trip over your words when you respond, and his smile widens while the rest of what you had to say gets trapped in your throat. Your hand is still clasped in his and you're surprised he can still hear the music over the erratic beat of your heart; you're more shocked that you're still standing on your own two feet.
You bat your eyelashes like Blair taught you, adjust the dress you modeled after hers, and follow him because you'd follow a boy like him anywhere, across the room and up the stairs until the cold night air whispers possibilities across your bare skin. He's standing before you, close, so close the fringe of his scarf tickles your neck and flutters through the long, blonde hair framing your face. You picture yourself on the Met steps, that same scarf wrapped tight around the column of your throat, Kati and Iz gazing wistfully from below.
One hand reaches for you, everything you've worked for held tight in his palm, and this is it, the moment you've spent fifteen years waiting to come true. You close your eyes and wait for him to kiss you the way Nate kisses Blair, for his fingers to tenderly caress your cheek and his mouth to press against yours in a feather light kiss.
He doesn't cup your face in his hands and he doesn't tell you that you're beautiful. He laces his fingers through your hair, pulls it tight and kisses you hard, too hard, so hard you think you might bruise. You can feel Blair's disapproval rising through the cement roof in waves and you cringe as his tongue scrapes against your teeth. You stop spinning fantasies and start weaving cover stories.
You try to slip from his grasp but he's bigger than he looks (stronger too) and your heart starts skipping beats for entirely different reasons. You stop believing you're the luckiest girl in the world and start fearing that you're the stupidest.
It's "Gossip Girl's" weapon of choice that saves you and your text brings a white knight wearing your brother's face. He brings a princess with longer, blonder hair and a Midas touch and together they slay your dragons while you cower in the background and watch your golden fantasies crumble into dust.
You're fifteen years old when you learn not every fairytale has a happy ending.
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II. Masquerade
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Revenge is sweet but it's a bitter pill to swallow.
Your fantasies have shattered but you pick up the pieces and stitch them back together. The truth comes out (as it always does) about Nate and Serena and the Campbell Apartment and you watch Blair's smile falter but never fade. You follow her lead, borrow, beg, and steal (although that comes later) and fashion a knock-off life until it's impossible to tell what's real and what's your recreation.
You put that night on the roof out of mind, lock it away with all the nightmares Blair endures, and do her bidding in hopes you'll have something that resembles her life. There's a price to pay (your loyalty, your future, your very being), but at the moment the only tithe is your time.
You obey her orders, keep her secrets and bury her lies. You watch and you learn and you store it for later (although later doesn't work out the way you intended either). In Blair's clothes, you become Eric's friend; in Blair's presence you become someone important; without Blair leading the way, you don't exist at all.
Somehow everything in your life seems to lead back to Blair.
You lost something the night of her first party; on the occasion of her second, you're determined to get it back.
You're not invited, you're never really invited (hired help isn't exactly A-list material) but you're still determined to go. You thought you could have it all before Chuck snatched it away. You want that feeling again.
Vanessa provides the dress (expensive as anything Blair's seamstress could whip up) and you provide the mask, hide your face behind a show of sequins. In your yellow dress, you look expensive; in your gilded mask, you're another Upper East Side debutante out on the town; in your new identity, you can be anyone you want to be. With your blonde hair piled high you look like Serena and with your demure eyes you look like Blair and with your coy smile you're like every fantasy of his come to life. It's easy, easier than most things, to draw him across the room and into the trap.
You're little Jenny Humphrey from Brooklyn and your fingers shake, your smile wavering, but you hide it well under the folds of the fan. "Let's play a game," you suggest, fighting to keep your voice steady, submerge Jenny Humphrey under the weight of Little J.
He wears a devil's mask to hide the beast inside and the lights kick up a crimson glow around him. "I'd say strip poker but I don't have my cards." His lips curve into a familiar smirk that makes your skin crawl.
Little J speaks from behind the mask, her voice strong and assured. "How about hide and seek? You hide and I'll seek."
"I have truly died and gone to heaven," he promises, his voice smooth as the silk of your dress. Two months ago, it would have been enough to turn your head; tonight, it only turns your stomach.
The night air is cool against your skin and the hem of your princess gown scrapes the roof tiles as your mask threatens to slip down the bridge of your nose. It's almost midnight, your game is almost over, and there's only one move left.
You take your borrowed life in your hands, pray Blair has a conscience and Chuck's words won't hold much weight, and turn the lock with a deciding thud. His screams and pleas ring in your ears but you ignore them the way he ignored yours.
You're still Jenny Humphrey from Brooklyn when you learn the princess sometimes saves herself.
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III. Human Touch
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You're sweet sixteen and your world doesn't resemble anything you held dear a year earlier.
You rose and you fell and felt the swift justice of Blair's revenge. She warned you that there would be a price to pay but you didn't listen (you hear but never really listen) and you lost almost everything before you were able to return the amount in full.
You took the red pill when you should have chosen blue and wake at the bottom of the rabbit hole with a resounding thud; turns out, it runs deeper than you could have imagined.
You like the new you but sometimes it's like the old you never existed at all. Penelope and Hazel and Iz were never really your friends but it still hurts when they look at you like you're not even there. Nate was never really your boyfriend but it still hurts when he looks at you with mistrust lurking in the warm blue of his eyes. Blair never really liked you but it still hurts when she looks at you with pity marring the beauty of her face. "Gossip Girl" still lights up your phone like a beacon in the night and your name is the only one she doesn't mention.
You cut your hair into a shaggy fringe, bleach out the color and lies. You line your eyes in kohl and they've never looked so blue or seen so much. You trade in second hand Lanvin flats for Frye boots and your steps have never felt so heavy. Your father tells you he's proud of you and Eric tells you he's in awe of you but sometimes the weight of an iconoclast is too much to bear. You're only sixteen; it shouldn't be this hard.
Wes is nice and he doesn't ask questions. He isn't new but he doesn't care about "Gossip Girl" or the web she spins and when your AP Bio teacher pairs you off he smiles in a way that tells you that the past is your secret to keep. He isn't your prince (been there, done that, regretted every second of it) but he's sweet and his eyes are kind and his face lights up when you suggest board games and soda pop in lieu of Plumm and champagne. You let him beat you at "Monopoly" and laugh at his corny jokes in hopes that he'll stay. You've lost so much already; you can't risk losing more.
You don't speak of the devil but he still appears, tails untucked and hair spilling rakishly over his brow. There's a glint in his eye that sends a shiver down your spine and a smirk curving his lips that makes your breath catch in your throat. It's been over a year but there are some memories you can never forget.
Something changes in Wes' eyes as the insults spill from Chuck's lips and your breath catches in your throat for entirely different reasons. You already watched Asher and Nate walk away and never look back; you can't lose him too. You push him out of your new life and into your old, the UES beckoning like a familiar prison. It's not what you want but it's what you know.
He throws in a couple good zingers but you know his sins as well as you know your own and cut right to the bone. "You really think I care if Lily kicks me out?" he drawls lazily, the smirk never leaving his face.
He's bigger but you're taller so you straighten up and fire back. "Yeah, I do. Because you lost Blair, and now she's dating your best friend. So therefore, the only human contact that you have that you don't pay for is the people in this house. But knowing you you'll screw that up too.
Your words sting, cut something open deep inside him, and pain bleeds from his eyes as they stare into yours over the rim of his scotch. You're not like him, you swear you're not, but you can't help but hold yourself a little higher as you slip past him and into the night. He almost took something from you once; it's your turn do the same.
Your threat holds more weight than you thought because he's alone, a vodka clenched between white-knuckled fingers when you return. His face is a blank slate; even the menace is gone from his eyes. He asks about your date, acts like he cares about your life, and you wish you'd had this conversation a year earlier before he bent you backwards over a skylight and tried to take one of the few things you hadn't sacrificed at the altar of Blair Waldorf.
He won't look at you but his voice is so empty and devoid of life that you don't need to see through him to know what he's feeling "I never apologized for what happened last year. I deeply regret my actions of that night." You turn and look at him, the slumped set of his shoulders and defeated tilt of his head; he looks twelve-years-old and terrified even when he's nearly a man and the scariest person you've ever encountered.
"If you ever do, move in here, I'll make sure I'm not around." You've always wanted to be like Blair Waldorf and when his mouth trembles, just the tiniest bit, for a moment, just one moment, you think you see what Blair saw, a scared little boy who just wants to be loved in place of the sadistic monster in bowties and plaid pants. For a moment, just one moment, you think you feel what Blair felt, the crushing weight of a boy who just wants to belong in place of the nonchalant cad with a different girl every night. For a moment, just one moment, you think you want to do what Blair does and take him in your arms and make his troubles go away because at the end of the day you're still the girl who ran away from home and was welcomed back with open arms while he's the boy without a family or a place to rest his head.
The moment ends, like all moments do, and you don't know what to think. He's still the boy who took advantage of you on a rooftop and you're still the girl who couldn't stop him. Except he's also the boy who loves Blair beyond reason and keeps Eric safe and saved Lily from the same thing he tried to do to you. You don't like him and you can't forget what happened but you don't think you hate him any longer.
You're sixteen years old when you realize people are often everyone but who you think they should be.
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IV. Two Together
You're seventeen years old when your family stretches to bring in four new members.
You gain a sister and two brothers and Lily goes from the girl your father loves to the woman he wants to give forever. You're happy for them (you think) because it's been a long time coming and too much of your childhood has revolved around the waiting game between the two of them and the fallout when the waiting takes too long. You just wish you didn't have to bear the scars of their mistakes and regrets.
The ring isn't large but it doesn't matter. Lily would wear a blue piece of plastic from the bottom of a Cracker Jack box if it meant having your father by her side for eternity. The wedding won't be fancy but it doesn't matter because your father would hire a justice of the peace and Lily would elope if it meant nothing could come between them anymore. The proposal wasn't elaborate but it doesn't matter because when Lily asks your father to never stop loving her the way he smiles in return is the only answer she needs.
Their engagement party is held the second week in March and everyone comes home from college to celebrate the occasion of your father making an honest woman out of Lily twenty years too late.
They take the party on a trip down memory lane and each new insight to the past is another punch in the gut. Your father loved someone else and your mother never forgot it and it took seventeen years but you understand why your mother's smile always trembled and your father's smile never quite reached his eyes. You've seen first hand what it means to love one person and build a life with another, and felt the aftershocks when the house of cards imploded and all that was left was shards of what could have been.
You haven't been Queen in over a year and "Gossip Girl" has forgotten you ever tried to steal Blair's crown, but you're tired of being brave. Sometimes you like how much easier it was then. You're happy your mother has Alex; you're happy your father has Lily; you're happier that every wrong has been righted. You'd be happier if you hadn't watched your world crumble around you too many times to count.
You drink too much and wobble in your Louboutins, trading sips of champagne each time a memory rips another hole in what's left of your childhood.
Chuck is the one to take you home. Serena is preoccupied with your brother (the one who shares your blood) and Eric has stopped caring about your mother's marriages (third time wasn't a charm and he doesn't have much faith in the fourth), disappearing with Jonathan rather than bear the burden of loving and losing another father. You don't like him but he's about to be family; if you've learned anything over the past three years, it's that family should stick together.
He helps you into the limo and to your surprise, climbs in beside you. "What are you doing?" you slur, try to focus on his face through the haze of champagne.
He shrugs and loosens his bow tie. "Someone needs to make sure you get home safely."
The limo is large but its walls still press in around you and you're suddenly very aware that there's no escape. You fall two years into the past; bile rises in your throat and it has nothing to do with too much champagne.
"I'm fine," you say and push your bangs off your face to get a better look at him. He kept his word, moved out when you moved in, but it doesn't erase the memory of rooftop. "Go back to the party."
He's poured himself a scotch but doesn't drink it, holds the glass between long, tapered fingers. "We're family, Humphrey. This is where I'm supposed to be."
You push up on your elbows, wish you hadn't drank so much and could follow this conversation better. "You're sober."
He smiles for the first time all night. "You're not."
You collapse against the seat, wish your head wasn't spinning and your limbs didn't feel so heavy. "It's all a lie," you confess and your words are thick on your tongue but it feels good to say them out loud. "I love my dad and I like Lily, but it's not like they had some grand love story. They were married to other people and in love with each other." You close your eyes to stop the tears. "My entire childhood my dad wanted to be with someone else. Maybe even wanted me to be with someone else."
He's quiet for a long minute and when you open your eyes to look at him the scotch is gone from his hands but the glass is still full. "Your dad has always wanted you just the way you are. You were right, you know. He would have made me leave if he knew the truth. He loves you that much." He smiles in a way that reminds you of your father because it lingers on his face but never quite reaches the dark depths of his eyes. "Take it from someone who knows. Love isn't something that comes easy. Don't let it go."
Blair said something similar once but you never took her words to heart. You should have listened, because Blair's father never really loved her mother and when he left her world shattered while yours only splintered, and she still picked herself up and kept on going. You've always wanted to be like Blair. You square your shoulders and prepare to begin.
Your hair is blonde and your eyes are blue but you know what it's like to fight for every single thing you've ever wanted. You lean forward and press your mouth against his, just once, so light it's barely a kiss, to say thank you, to say I understand, to say you're not alone. When you pull back he's staring at you like you've lost your mind and maybe you have, because a year ago you were threatening to destroy the little happiness he had in his life and a year later you're giving him what he tried to take from you so long ago. "Take it from someone else who knows. You have people who love you. You just have to give them a try."
You don't say anything more and fall asleep on his shoulder. The next morning you're in your own bed and wearing your dress and your shoes are lined up neatly next to your door. There's no note and no text, but you don't need either. You're not the person you were two years ago; neither is he.
When you join the family – the entire family – for brunch, you sit beside him and sip your coffee and understanding passes between you in easy silence.
You're seventeen years old when you realize that you can't change the past but you can choose your own future.
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V. Graduation
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You're eighteen years old when Chuck takes what you freely give him.
You're only going to FIT, just a couple blocks south and west, so you don't protest when your father and Lily attend a benefit and Eric spends his last night of childhood crying into Jonathan's shoulder.
You're packing your last bag when he comes in, because you're a hometown native but want a real college experience; you'll slog it out in the dorms like everyone else.
He's wearing a button-down shirt and vest and bow tie but his hair falls messily over his brow and his tie is loose. You've never seen him so relaxed, not unless there's a ballerina or Victrola dancer wrapping her legs around his torso like a pretzel. You've never seen him so at ease in his skin, not unless Blair is standing at his side and choosing the boy she needs over the boy she wants. You've never seen him home, at your home, unless Lily summons him and he's seated a safe distance from your dinner plate.
He's been staying at The Palace for the summer, Nate's Hamptons house on weekends, and you've only seen him a handful of times since you broke free of Constance's bonds and your life was yours to live again.
He pauses by your doorway on the way to the elevator and your back is turned while you struggle to close your largest Hermès duffle (a present from Lily, you'd never spend so much on yourself) but you can feel his eyes on you, dark and burning through the six feet of space between you.
"Here," he says and pushes into the room. "Let me help you."
He sidles up beside you and one hand brushes yours as he tugs on the zipper. He hasn't touched you in a year, not since the night you got wasted when his stepmother and your father promised each other forever and he carried you home and put you to bed like the white knight you once thought he could be.
His skin is warm and soft, and it feels nice against yours. You suck in a breath and pull your hand away. Over the orange leather, your eyes meet. "Are you ready for tomorrow?"
Your heart starts beating in your chest, so loud you're shocked he isn't laughing at you, but he just watches with those dark, hooded eyes. "I'm just going downtown," you point out and his lips curve in a laughing smile as you trip over your words. "It's not a big deal."
"Leaving home is always a big deal," he responds and something changes in his eyes, some of the melancholy from two years ago creeping into his gaze.
"Your home is here," you say softly. "I think you should move in." You pause, meet his eyes and stay steady despite the intensity of the yearning there. "I want you to move back in."
"You sure?"
You don't say anything but walk the short distance between you until you're close, so close his breath blows strands of hair away from your face and the ends of his bowtie tickle the skin exposed by the low scoop of your tunic. You step even closer, so close you can smell him in the air and feel his heart beating erratically in time with yours.
You think about Blair the day she came back to Constance, yogurt in her hair and a frenemy at her side, and the way she held her head high as she began a life she didn't choose but was still hers to live. Blair set this in motion four years ago; it's only logical to end the way it began.
You press your lips against his but it's not soft and fleeting like the night in the limo, it's hard and hot and when he opens his mouth to say something you push your tongue inside to tangle with his.
He responds, but still pushes you away. "Jenny, what are you doing?" he asks and you only twine tighter around him, long, lean limbs wrapping around the broad expanse of his shoulders.
"Three years ago, I wanted it to be you." It's the first time you've acknowledged how far you'd have gone to fit in, to win Blair's praise, to become a part of that world. "Three years later, I think I want the same thing." You pause, stare into his eyes, and there's nothing devilish glinting there. "I know I want it to be you."
"Jenny…" he starts and you want to laugh because he's Chuck Bass and probably never turned down sex a day in his life.
"I don't love you," you assure him, because you want things to be clear. This is still the UES; sometimes a deal is just a deal. "Most of the time I don't even like you. I'm leaving for school tomorrow and I'm never coming back. I want something of my old life to take with me."
He doesn't say anything but he does cup your face in his hands and looks at you like you're the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. You close your eyes and his mouth presses against yours in a feather light kiss.
You're eighteen years old when you realize real life isn't a fairytale but happy endings are still possible.
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