Pairings: Chair if you squint.

Setting: Pre-canon.

Rating: Rated K for…nothing.

Ages: 5; kindergarten.

Charles

He walked in proud. His father had given him the pep talk the night before and he knew exactly how to act going into this.

Head tall. No slouching. Carry his own backpack, but let Esmeralda lead the way.

It was a comfort to note that most of the other kids around were also arriving with nannies. Charles had developed the skill to discern between a nanny and a mother at a very young age. And while he could assume that most of the other boys and girls had mothers somewhere at home or possibly at an office, like his dad, they couldn't assume the opposite about him. Esmeralda did a simply marvelous job of shining his shoes and hiding his roots.

But Charles didn't make the mistake that most of those sniveling whelps were making by clinging to their nannies like they were custom made mamas that their daddies had bought them special to get through their first day of school. No, Esmeralda was just here to ensure that he made it to the right classroom and didn't run off to spend the day in Central Park.

So Charles said goodbye at the door, clinging only to the straps of his backpack and his budding Bass pride in clenched his fists as he stepped out into the world on his own. This was an easy enough world to be stuck in. After all, it was just school; he'd already been tutored in writing, maths, and piano for years.

Charles found his desk right away—it was at the head of the class, because his last name was Bass—and sat down after slipping his bag across the back of his seat. After that, he sat back and looked around, wanting to get an idea of the people he'd have to deal with for the next, what, thirteen years of his life?

He was disappointed. One cursory glance around the room revealed a blond girl crying as her nanny tried to hold on to her toddling younger brother, a brunette with curly pigtails already throwing a fit, and a boy picking his nose before wiping conspicuously on his sweater-vest.

Charles frowned as he fiddled with his tie. No thank you.

Another glance around the room did reveal one person of interest. A girl seated primly at her desk in the back of the classroom with a pencil and notebook already out. She had a plaid headband holding that held back the long, loose rivulets of chestnut colored hair down her back. With her hair pulled back like that, the features of her face stood out. Mostly her eyes. Charles couldn't help but notice that they were huge.

Not a moment later, those eyes turned from the front of the room to his direction, before narrowing at him. He didn't like that. He liked it better when they were bigger.

The girl opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but they were all the way across the classroom from each other, seated at opposite corners. They couldn't have been farther away from each other if they tried. So she seemed to think better of it, probably knowing that she'd have to shout to be heard over the din of the raucous children and instead huffed, crossing her arms and again facing the front of the class.

Charles smiled a little, one half curling upwards in amusement and the other half almost pursing in contentment. Her face was red and she was pouting, her lower lip jutting out in front of the upper one. He liked her like that.

By then all of the nannies had filed out of the classroom, leaving an adult at the front of the class, who Charles could only presume was the teacher. She quickly confirmed that by introducing herself as Ms. Morris, the kindergarten teacher.

His father had told him that Bass men were quick learners. That all he had to do was pay attention, and he would do just fine.

He never specified exactly what Charles was supposed to pay attention to.

That left Charles to take his pick. And, frankly, Ms. Morris was boring him. Like he didn't already know the letters of the alphabet. Please.

So, since he clearly had nothing to learn from Ms. Morris, he chose to watch the class. It was just too bad that he was in the front of the class. The fact that he had to keep craning his neck to look around was getting kind of obvious. Stupid Ms. Morris had already called him out twice.

Charles just smiled his special adult smile at her. She'd learn. Maybe not as fast as him, but she would. Soon enough.

"You're Charles, right?" the boy who sat next to him asked when they were finally—finally—released for lunch.

Charles nodded. He'd noticed how somehow in the few hours that they'd been sitting in class, this kid had managed to unroll his sleeves, rumple his collar, and get his blond hair so much in front of his eyes Charles didn't know how he could see the board.

Not that he was missing anything.

"I'm Nate," the boy replied cheerfully as they made to stand in a line before the front of the door. Nate was first, Charles was second.

"Ms. Morris said your name was Nathaniel."

Nate laughed, like Charles hadn't just called him out on lying. "Yeah, my name is Nathaniel, but everyone calls me Nate. It's my nickname."

"A nickname," Charles stated dubiously. "So you just made up your own name."

Another laugh, even as dumb Ms. Morris glared at them as they began down the hallway to the cafeteria. "I didn't give it to myself. My mom's called me Nate since I can remember."

"And your dad?" Charles questioned, searching for some kind of flaw.

That seemed to give Nate pause, as he stopped to think. "Well, he usually calls me champ or sport or something like that," he finally answered with a shrug.

"More nicknames," Charles concluded.

"Yeah. Hey, let's sit together at lunch!"

Charles was a little taken aback by the suggestion, but, realizing that he would definitely need someone to sit with at lunch, he agreed. "Okay."

"Great! I'll introduce you to my friend!"

That particular exclamation was finally enough for Ms. Morris to turn back and hush the both of them, leaving Nate looking chastised and Charles smirking. He leaned over Nate's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure she won't be around long."

To Charles's interest, it turned out that the friend that Nate had mentioned was the precocious girl with the headband.

"This is Blair," Nate introduced as they sat down at a small, circular table. "Blair, this is Charles."

"Oh, yes. The one who kept on getting in trouble." Blair looked at him pointedly before turning back to Nate. "Nate, this is Serena."

Blair gestured the blond girl beside her; she was the same girl who had been crying before class started. They sat next to each other in class just like Nate and Charles did.

"So how do you and Nathaniel know each other?" Charles asked Blair.

Blair wrinkled her nose as she opened the latch on her purse-like lunchbox. "Why did you call him that?"

"Because that's his name," Charles deadpanned.

"I thought his name was Nate," Serena said, her mouth full of sugar wafers.

"Oh cool, sugar wafers! Can I have one?"

Charles cringed. Apparently seeing them fall like dandruff out of Serena's mouth wasn't a deterrent. Serena handed him a piece and they both crunched happily while Blair ate a carrot stick and Charles poked at his sandwich.

Blair turned back to him. "Of course Nathaniel is his name, but all of his friends call him Nate. And, for your information, we know each other because our moms are in the same book club."

"Well, we're friends and I'm going to call him Nathaniel."

Once again, Blair narrowed her eyes at him, and Charles didn't like it any more than he had the first time. As a matter of fact, he liked it less now, because at close range it felt as if she could read his thoughts with a startling acuity.

"I think you're just jealous," she finally stated, sitting back and taking a sip of her water. "You don't have a nickname, so you don't want Nate to have one."

Charles sneered, "Oh, yeah? And what is Blair a nickname for? Blairthaniel? Blairlizabeth?"

"No, Blair isn't short for anything. But my daddy calls me Blair-bear."

"My brother calls me Reena because he doesn't have his s's yet," Serena added.

So he really was the only on without a nickname. Charles frowned. He didn't like that. "That doesn't mean I'm jealous."

Blair shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"Hey!" Serena exclaimed. "We could give you a nickname!"

"Yeah, let's do that!" Nate mumbled through a mouthful of Doritos.

"We could call you Charlie," Serena suggested.

Charles grimaced. "That makes me sound like a little kid."

"You are a little kid," Blair stated.

Charles turned to Blair. "Well, that means that you're a little kid too; we're the same age."

Blair shook her head, letting her long hair sway this way and that. "Not so. I'll be six in sixty-six days."

"You keep track?"

"Only when it's less than one-hundred days," Blair stated plainly. "Daddy says it helps with my math."

"Okay, fine, not Charlie," Nate interjected, bored by talk of Blair's birthday. "How about, uh…what's your middle name?"

Charles bristled. "You're not calling me by my middle name."

His middle name was Bartholomew. Not only was that way worse than Charles, but it was his father's name; no way was it an option.

"Well, there aren't any other nicknames for Charles, are there?" Serena mused.

Blair shrugged. "Chuck is one."

"Ew, I don't like that!" Serena squealed.

Nate laughed at her reaction. "It's not that bad!"

Charles frowned at their antics, feeling like he was the butt of a joke. He was about to denounce that name too when Blair spoke up.

"I don't know. Chuck…Bass, right?" Charles nodded. "Chuck Bass. It sounds good like that."

Blair smiled at him, cocking her head a little bit, as though asking him to consider it.

Charles nodded. "Chuck Bass. We'll see."

Blair, it turned out, had a knack for giving nicknames. Or, more accurately, epithets.

And if epithets were her law, the playground was her kingdom.

"You're an ignoramus."

She stated it bluntly, looking down at a poor kid who happened to be shorter than her in her one-inch Mary Janes.

"You don't even know what that means!" The boy tried to stare her down, but Blair just crossed her arms.

"I do too. It's what my mom called out cook right before he got fired, so fill in the blanks on what it means."

"That's still not you knowing what it means!"

Charles, who had been watching the whole exchange whilst leaning against a pole on the perimeter, sauntered over and stood beside Blair. "It means that you're stupid."

The boy stiffened, glaring daggers at Charles. "I'm telling."

As soon as the boy left, Blair turned to Charles, looking less pleased than he'd hoped. "I knew what it meant, just so you know."

Charles nodded. "I know."

Blair looked surprised for a second, before it settled into a satisfied smile. "Well, good. So what name do you think we should give Ms. Morris?"

Charles raised his eyebrows, almost flattered that she was giving him the chance to don Ms. Morris with a terrible epithet. "Ms. Bore-is?"

Blair shook her head, looking pensive. "No, Boris is a real name so that wouldn't be that bad. It was the name of our first doorman. Bore is almost right, though. I mean, the alphabet? Really? If you don't know that, you don't deserve to go to this school."

A full smile broke out on Charles's lips. "My thoughts exactly."

Suddenly a toothy smile that Charles hadn't seen yet revealed itself on Blair's face. Charles decided that he liked that look best so far. "How about Ms. Snore-is?

By the end of the day, Charles had gotten a stern castigating from Ms. Snore-is about calling people stupid and her new nickname had caught on with the whole class. Blair got in no trouble whatsoever.

It had been a good day.

Bart came home from work just after Charles was put to bed by Esmeralda. The lights had just been turned off, but with a lot on his mind from his first day of school, Charles was far from asleep.

"How was the first day, Charles?" he asked, to the ream of papers in his hand as he poked his head into Charles's room.

"It went well," Charles said, leaning up on his elbows.

"You followed my directions?"

"Absolutely."

Bart nodded approvingly. "Good."

He turned to leave before Charles realized that he had one last thing to say. "Father?"

Bart looked back at Charles, his eyes tired. "What?"

Charles smirked. "Call me Chuck."

A/N: Cards on the table: I was eating sugar wafers while I wrote this. They got all over my laptop. And my pants.

I may make this into a series of Chuck's many nicknames. 4 or 5 chapters. This story just feels like it's kind of weak like this and it should build. Thoughts?