Author's Note: I'm offically done with school! first year old college finished and! it was better then i'd expected it to be. anyways, your reviews once again made my days, so thank you so much. responses to them all are at the bottom. andd depending on your reviews and my free time I think i'll be updating tomorrow, I'm pretty excited about next chapter. the beginning of this one might make you laugh, I know Katie liked it. enjoy!
In the seven years he'd been sexually active never once had anyone fallen asleep on him. Chuck Bass didn't make women fall asleep, he made them moan his name loud and continuously. He'd prided himself on being able to satisfy them numerous times a night. Chuck Bass was a lover, in the loosest of meanings however. He kept them all coming back and wanting more, night after night. No one fell asleep on him, that was just out of the question and unheard of. Chuck wouldn't even have thought it was possible. Nearly one hundred girls he'd been with, nearly one hundred women he'd head his name from in dozens of different octaves, never had he heard them breathe evenly to fall asleep. It was an outrage, an insult, it wasn't possible. The idea of it made Chuck's skin crawl, it was something he was sure it would take a hundred more girls laying beside him to forget. Something that he never wanted to leave the room, something he'd be sure to threaten the girl laying beside him for. He felt like he needed a psychologist just to get over the new mental scarring that was engraved in his brain. If only he could have actually explained the new trauma to a therapist, one that he wouldn't have tried to sleep with. He had a habit of getting even them into bed. Chuck Bass knew how to please, he liked knowing that he always had at least that aspect going for him. Dozens of times no matter where the act occurred he always had it. This, this however was a new one, no one ever fell asleep on Chuck Bass, it just wasn't right. He was Chuck Bass.
Feeling her stir beside him a scowl came to his face, he didn't really want to deal with her. Reaching to the wooden table beside him he picked up his ninth cigarette of the morning and lit hit breathing in the smoke and holding it hoping to calm himself down. His mind kept going over and over the fact that she'd had the nerve to actually fall asleep on him. He should have just called a cab to take her home and drop her somewhere in a sewer. It was the coughing that prevented him from doing so. Hearing the deep cough that was in her lungs sounded like something wasn't right with her, even if she'd fallen asleep on him he couldn't let her out into the rain with a cough like that. Had she died people he cared about, and even those he didn't much care for would have been on his back. His memory held enough guilt he'd never admit to anyways. She wasn't worth adding another years worth of therapy for. Exhaling the puff of smoke he'd taken in made her coughing increase and her eyes snap open, he could tell without even looking at her that she was now awake. It didn't take long for her to be up on her feet, clutching the sheet and racing to his private bathroom. His eyes followed after her but he didn't move, he stayed station working still on the cigarette in his hand. Chuck didn't exactly care to follow after her, she hadn't satisfied him why should he care what was wrong with her.
Finishing up his cigarette and laying for five minutes with his eyes shut contently, his hands folded in back of his head, he didn't wait for her to return. Had he held his breath he would have been dead she took so long. She looked god awful when she came back in, Chuck almost regretted opening his eyes. Then, the coughing filled the ears and she looked like she was about ready to collapse. It was almost a reflex as he lifted the covers for her to come back beside him, it was a good thing his tolerance levels were so high. Inexplicably high, even he couldn't figure out why he was being so nice to her after what she'd done to him. She'd dropped the sheet on the way to the bathroom and picked up a shirt of his off of the floor, he noticed as he looked her over quickly. Looked her over only enough to see her start to back away from the bed. It only took a few steps for her to put her hand on her head, he could see her hesitation with a dizzy head rush for a moment before she gave up her fight and walked forward, slowly getting back onto his bed. Instantly she pulled for the covers he'd pulled down for her and she shivered into them, pulling them to her neck as he dared to reach out for her. Surprising the both of them she didn't complain, she just curled closer to him.
At her first contact with his body he felt almost like a child who'd just put his hand directly on the hot burner of a stove. Her coughing stopped for a moment and her breathing turned into wheezing, she sounded the worst he'd ever heard anyone sound. Between her wheezing, coughing, and the fever that was so evident there was no question to the fact that she was sick. She shook again with a chill and all the nights he'd watched discovery health to go to sleep suddenly kicked in as he wrapped his only boxer clad body around her to keep her warm. It was odd for him, Chuck didn't care if people were sick. There was oddly something making him want to help her and want to take care of her. It wasn't like he'd ever had any experience taking care of anyone, no one had even done it to him in the first place. Bart hadn't ever helped him as a child. Good guy chuck was making his once and a while appearance.
"Good to know it was your fault you fell asleep"
Arrogance filled his voice as she continued to shiver and wheeze in his arms. The condition she was in was far from her normal self, not that her normal self had been around for a few weeks. She was far from the person she'd been when he'd met her for the very first time. It was strange really, to see her go through such transformations. Chuck wasn't someone to notice things like that on a regular basis, it took real changes for Chuck to see them.
"I think you're sick, you don't sound too good"
The only thing she did was make a grunt to the obviousness that he'd just stated. She didn't feel good, she felt far from good. She felt like an ice sculpture, her fever had to have been the highest it had ever been. She couldn't take a clear breath without wheezing, the coughing felt like it was about to shatter her into pieces, it created pains in both her chest and her back throbbed. All of that was nothing compared to the fire that was burning in her throat, throwing up hadn't made it anywhere near better. The smoke from the cigarette Chuck had been smoking was killing her morning sickness. She couldn't remember another moment in her life when she had ever felt the way she did.
"How about I call a driver and we'll get you to the hospital? They can put you on drugs or something. I don't know what you're supposed to do when you sound the way you do. But, I think you sound like you need a doctor because it's not normal."
Vanessa shook her head and put her hand weakly against his chest as if she were attempting to push him away that wasn't working to well. She couldn't let him go with her, there were things that he just couldn't know anything about.
"I'll… I want, myself. To go myself… I don't need your help."
Another painful sounding coughing fit erupted from her lungs as soon as she'd gotten the messy sentence out of her mouth. She'd throw a fit if she had to, they both knew she would. Even if she was weak and sick she still wasn't about to play by any of Chuck Bass's rules. She threw out another cough and shiver as she started to get out of the bed and away from him.
"Well, a car is going to take you regardless."
Taking the last word Chuck reached to the side table and lit another cigarette. Exactly the last thing Vanessa needed.
Laying in one of the kids beds Vanessa could hardly keep her eyes open, she'd never been a good patient when she was sick but this time she was so almost completely out of it she couldn't have cared less what was going on around her. Soon as she'd been released from the hospital she'd gotten on the subway feeling like she was about to pass out. Heading to Cora's was the best thing she could have done. Vanessa was in no shape to take care of Ruby, she needed to take care of herself. Or rather with Cora there, Cora insisted on taking care of her. She hadn't moved in hours, not at the least bit typical for Vanessa. she could tell the kids were worried by just how often they peaked into the room to look at her waiting the Vanessa they knew and loved to take them to the park and film them making a movie on the slide. They hadn't ever seen Vanessa the way she was with the fever and the rest of her infections.
"Mommy, here's the cold face cloth, tell Vee she's gotta get better now, we have to go out and play!"
Jack said from the door as Cora got up from beside Vanessa and went to retrieve the items from her middle child, Jack was the only one in the house. Steve was out with a friend and his mother and Elle had her own day planned that Cora hadn't told Vanessa about. Something was up but Vanessa didn't feel anywhere near well enough to question her about it.
"Thank you Jack, now go back and watch Nemo ok?"
Nodding his head he blew Vanessa a kiss before running off back to the couch. Out of the three kids it wasn't hard to tell that Jackson was the one that adored Vanessa the most. Whenever she was around the six year old was normally glued to her side. He'd even been the one that threatened Nate to take care of her. It was cute and Nate had pretended to take it as a real threat just to humor the little boy. They had spent hours after hours arguing back and forth till Vanessa had assured both the boys that she loved the both of them, receiving a kiss from both. Cora used to tease Nate that he needed to watch his butt, or Jack was going to steal her away from him. Now there was no competition left.
Cora turned back to Vanessa on the bed and shook her head as the thermometer beeped off its next reading. With the cautious meds the hospital had given her the fever was coming down very slow, not like it would have come down if she'd of just been allowed to take the motrin she'd attempted to take.
"Vanessa, do you have any idea how dangerous it was to let your fever get up that high? 105.1 I mean, what were you thinking? Not just for that poor baby but for yourself too. I don't know how you got this sick without noticing."
She lectured as she took the thermometer out of Vanessa's mouth, checked it to its 99.5 and placed it back on the table beside the bed. Vanessa felt better then she had when she'd first gotten to Cora's just knowing someone cared had made Vanessa feel a little bit better. Even if Chuck hadn't been so bad about it all it still wasn't the same as being with Cora who hardly let her do anything out of worry.
"I've been busy working Cora, anything to keep my mind preoccupied"
Vanessa whispered out lowly as she pushed the quilt Cora had pulled up to her neck down a little bit. With the way Cora was mothering her she knew she didn't know the first thing about being a mother. But as her sickness progressed she found herself going into the delusions of keeping the baby rather than the abortion she'd scheduled. The fever was making her mind all over the place, that's all she could venture to blame it on and nothing more.
"Sweetie, you need to take care of yourself. How many times to I have to stress that one?"
The eye roll was an involuntary movement as she crossed her arms over her face to avoid another lecture from Cora. As she pulled her arms down from her face she heard the door to the apartment open and shut with footsteps trailing in. Vanessa looked at Cora who stood up fast and rushed to the door of the room sticking her head out to greet whoever it was. Which could only mean one thing.
"Well I can't say she's very impresses, as you can tell by the fact that she's not speaking to me."
She heard Nate's voice as she watched the silhouettes against the wall of Noelle clinging to Cora and burying her head in her shoulder. That was unusual for Elle, normally she didn't want anyone to take her away from Nate.
"I told you she wasn't going to be impressed with anyone else. You know that she adores Vanessa, she had a hard time sharing you with Vanessa and you want her to share you with someone she doesn't know. See Nate, maybe children are more perceptive then you think."
The comment Cora made made a slight sleepy smile come to Vanessa's face. Nate had to have taken Noelle to meet Blair, and that couldn't have gone to well. She knew that Cora's kids were three she was very close to for a reason. They were smart unlike Nate. He'd never be one to use his brain and actually think like a smart person. She shook her head to herself and closed her eyes. With the little bit of information maybe Vanessa really could take a few hours of sleep, at least she had a small list of people that liked her better then Blair, not that Vanessa cared for competition, that was Blair's game not her own.
Stepping into the small Williamsburg apartment he noted that it was cleaner then the last time he'd walked or more stumbled into it. Since the night after Jenny's not so sweet sixteen Chuck could hardly count the nights he'd spent with Vanessa as they consoled the gin and vodka paired with expensive cigarettes and hashish. She'd been a virgin at smoking, the thought of her nearly coughing up a lung at first inhale still made him snicker with laughter. Numbing your own pain always seemed to be the best cure for everything when you couldn't control any other way. Chuck had learned that at a young age. Passing on the things he knew to others with the same pain was something he didn't mind, she was just as bad off as he was. They both had deep aches in their chests where their hearts had once been, but, Chuck wasn't one to think of himself having a heart. Besides on the nights she didn't fall asleep on him she wasn't half bad in bed, and, she was shameless on her knees. Chuck Bass's crude mind won over every other emotion in his body always.
She hadn't drank or gotten high with him in over two weeks, something that had just stopped suddenly two weeks ago. A week after she'd suddenly come out of a daze she'd been sucked into. For a week she'd seemed to use more than he did, and that was saying something. Then, then it all just stopped. Tonight he planned on getting her back to her new normal, back to the heartbroken, revenge seeking, cold bitch she'd become since being dumped. He needed someone to share his woes with, someone to drink and smoke with because doing it alone just wasn't working. If he had to he even planned on sharing with her what Nate had done to him just hours ago. How he'd asked for help with Blair and noticed that she'd changed. He's use anything to pull Vanessa back into the self-destructive funk she was in.
He didn't even have to call her name out to find out where she was. He could hear the water running in the kitchen, if that wasn't enough he could hear her strained coughing too. Bronchitis's dry hacking cough on top of strained strep throat didn't sound so comfortable. Chuck had made a point of upping his vitamin intake just to avoid himself getting sick. Even if she was sick, there he was. He needed to feel needed, even if it was a fake need it was still something he wanted to feel. After his run in with Jenny and the woman he'd hired being a fault Chuck just needed someone that felt as bad as he did. With how bad he knew she felt he knew he could drive her into doing whatever he wanted. He'd done it to her in the past weeks, he could do it to her again.
Walking though the small living room he headed into the kitchen. She hadn't even noticed his presence as he put down the bottles he'd had in his hand on the counter. The water in the sink was running and Vanessa was standing at the stove making something that smelt oddly enough good. Who would have thought that Brooklyn could actually cook decently. Chuck watched her for a moment, she was humming something or other and looked almost unnerved. Pulling a cruel smirk to his lips he reached over and shut the water in the sink off.
"Do you really have the money to waste on wasted water?"
Hearing his voice she spun around dropping the big plastic spoon that had been in her hand down onto the linoleum floor with a clank. He did his best to hold back a laugh as he twisted off the cap to the scotch and took a sip right from the bottle. Her annoyed eyes flashed at him as she picked up the spoon off of the floor and walked to the sink and turned on the water, rinsing the spoon and letting the water again run.
"What do you want Chuck?"
Her voice was a crackling whisper due to the different viruses that clogged her lungs. He rolled his eyes soon as the words slipped from his lips. As though he'd actually be at her apartment for anything else, they both knew the real reason he was there, of course she knew what he wanted. It was if she'd actually give it to him that was the real question. It wasn't him that she wanted and they both knew that. Nate was what she wanted more than anything. Bronchitis was taking over her lungs, strep throat killed her throat, a double ear infection in both of her ears, and morning sickness that lasted on and off all day depending on the smells around her. Morning sickness surly didn't help when it came to taking her meds. So much for going through with the abortion, now her sicknesses was going to get in the way of her appointment. She'd just have to postpone it yet another week. that was the thing that burned her thoughts, that made her completely disconnected. Not that Chuck knew a word of it.
"I wanted to che… sex. Why else would I come here?"
Only Chuck bass would have been able to say it with a straight face. All Vanessa could do was roll her eyes, she should have expected his response. Chuck wasn't about to admit that a small part of him had been worried about her, he wasn't supposed to worry about people. He most defiantly was not supposed to worry about Vanessa Abrams. She wasn't his problem to worry about.
"Well then, you'd better just call one of your booty calls because there's no way that I'm doing anything for you this afternoon or tonight. I can hardly breathe alone the last thing I need is"
She rasped out as Chuck unscrewed the cap to the vodka and held it close to her from behind her. The smell of it wasn't even tempting as she shrugged away from him. She had no interest on listening to anything Chuck had to say as she shut off the stove and pushed the pan off of the burner and turned around only to be chest to chest with him.
"Fine, then I'm afraid that I'm just going to have to hang around here. Maybe I can catch Ruby and the other one putting on a show in her room."
Not at the least bit surprised at Chuck's comment Vanessa rolled her eyes and reached over to take devil kitten off of the counter. The kitten had only seemed to get worse with its distain to Vanessa. To everyone else it cuddled and purred, to Vanessa it scratched and tried to bite. Picking the cat up off of the counter it swiped at her catching her skin with its claws it felt deep red marks all the way down her arm. More scratch marks on top of the ones she'd already had.
"What did you do to the cat?"
Opening up a can of tuna she put it in a bowl and put it back on the floor. With Ruby taking money with cigarettes daily Vanessa hadn't yet had a chance to buy cat food in the past week. The rent was due and Ruby wasn't any help with getting the money up. Ruby spent most of her days asleep and her nights high and drunk out of her mind. Keeping a job wasn't something Ruby would have been able to do. So the cat was stuck with people food, at least it was better than the raw meat Ruby's friends had a habit of trying to feed it. With all of that in consideration Vanessa didn't blame the cat for scratching and acting rebellious. Life out on the street had to have been better then the hell it was stuck in confound in the walls of the apartment.
"The cat is Blair's incarnate"
Vanessa whispered under her breath as Chuck caught it and laughed his devil like laugh.
Jenny - I actually have one story with Vanessa and Nate where I did that. it's a two shot, as for this one I'm honestly not yet sure where i'm going with it exactly myself yet. I'll be waiting to see just as you guys. lol, hope you continue reading!
Izzy- I was just going to send you a message the other day then I got carried away and forgot, I'm sorry. I like Maureen, she seemed like she was something different from the rest of them even if Tripp seemed to be all for everything the family did. Scott! though I'm of little intrest to actually see him on the show he works here. Dan/Scott comes in next, I'm looking forward to posing the next chapter, I think it'll be amusing. :P
Nope, you read the thing about Blair right. in my opinion Blair is just plain when it comes to the Upper East Side. sure, she's over the top and nuts but she's just like everyone else. Vanessa is the different one. she adds more to everything around because she's not the same as everyone else and she has no interest in being the same, looking cookie cutter pretty isn't something that Vanessa tries to do like Blair would try for.
Christinamarie712 - well that is a good question isn't it? :D hmmm how about a little hint? I know that in a little bit someone slightly close to one of the 'parents to perhaps be' will find out... who could that be?
Francesca - :D well updates will come perhaps even faster now that i'm done. Vanessa needs people to talk about her choices with ;)
Jen - Maureen might play an even bigger role in things soon... perhaps ;) but i'm not saying anything now am I? :P
Layla Persnickety - eep!! thank you soooo much!!! :D I try really hard on them and I'm so glad you like them. I'm a writer, it's what I do. hopfully some day it might actually make me some money. lol
ALEX!! - Ok let's see, I'm so glad Vanessa's struggles are coming across and she doesn't sound selfish. I was a little worried about that with the past chapter.
Oh! And reading that part of your review just now I just got a massive brain storm. See, no matter how many times I read it over I always get something from it. Maureen was trying to look out for her, she thinks she's making a mistake and Maureen just doesn't want to see her go through the same things Maureen goes through every day. I think I'll keep working at redeeming her in your eyes. Yea, about Tripp someone had mentioned it in the thread and I think I watched the part with him and Blair like five times while I wrote it. Lol yes she is! And it seems like they all need a little fresh air!
There's going to be something major that happens that makes Nate remember who he really is. Candyman will be back shortly, there's something in his life that will make him wake up.
DV was the best part about the other night, and speaking of Nate's apartment only one image came to my mind when I saw all those windows, and the image was an 'aww' one.
Eep! I'm so happy to see someone else who knows what I'm talking about with WAB, you know, they should straighten her hair just once, cause I still love the V curls, but I mean… it would be very different.
Keep the reviews coming long, see what they do, I get ideas right in the middle of them. :P
alright everyone!
please review and tell me what you think. Reviews give me ideas so keep them coming!
hope you liked the chapter!!
Manda
