spiders. [chuck bass fanfic]

intro.

She was late.

That was all that ran through Dan Humphrey's mind as he nervously tapped his foot against the concrete of the courtyard belonging to the Upper East Side high school known as St Jude's/Constance. And he meant the Upper East Side high school. This was the school which had all the big names - Blair Waldorf and her beloved boyfriend Nate Archibald who wasn't that bad, compared to his best friend, Chuck Bass.

And, now, Serena van der Woodsen had come back.

He had seen her. In the train station. On his way coming back from a mother who had run from home without any sign of coming back. It actually lifted his mood somewhat, returning home to find his blonde beauty standing there, looking for her usher. It made it somewhat easier to deliver the news to his father, to look Rufus Humphrey in the eyes and shake his head, telling him that his wife didn't look like she was coming back any time soon. It made the drive home somewhat bearable since it was occupied with a lifetime of memories flashing through his mind, thinking about the girl he'd been in love with for so oh, so long. He didn't need to overthink his family problems because Serena van der Woodsen had come back.

And if there was anyone he wanted to talk to about it all, it was Fev.

Well, Fev was the only person he could talk to since she really was his only friend at school and perhaps the whole of New York.

He didn't actually believe her real name was Fev Chandler. He knew it wasn't but alas, she refused to give it up. This of course set off his writer's instinct to know and at first, he had kept pestering her about the questionable last-name. It was only when he asked Fev's uncle slash guardian Mo - also known as Mr. Abad, his LOTE teacher - that the very obvious fact was pointed out to Dan.

It had been one weekend where Dan had arrived to Fev's loft because they had planned to watch a soccer game - the Champions League had commenced! - and she had been in the shower. It was the first time he had visited her place and so he'd been a little awkward sitting at the kitchen bench as his Spanish teacher, Mr Abad, stood in track pants and hoodie, cooking some beans in a pan for breakfast.

Mo Abad was a short man. Quite petit actually. Scrawny too. Bald. With forty nine years of age, he had never been married. Dan had been on one of his Writing Rants and questioning what love was when Fev told him that Mo had never married because his childhood sweetheart and love of his life had died when they were young.

As Mo spoke several languages, having grown up speaking Spanish and Arabic, he found easy work as a foreign languages teacher. However that wasn't what got him the job at St. Jude's. No, that was being one hell of a teacher who actually managed to get the rich, spoiled kids who had it all to actually care about something. He was the only teacher that the student body actually respected. And this respect came from the fact that he was perhaps the only adult in these rich kids' lives who actually cared about them and listened to their dreams — whilst very much not taking any of their shit.

For example, when Mr Abad, in front of everyone in his class, told Chuck Bass to "stuff your fucking ten thousand and actually do your verb conjugations and actually learn your shit because you will sit the exam! You can thank me later when you're off wooing exotic Spaniards!"

And would you believe, Chuck had actually beat Dan in one or two vocab quizzes here and there.

And would you believe, it had been a letter from Bass Industries sat on the kitchen table that had started the conversation that infamous first visit to the Chandler/Abad household.

"Your name is Mohammed?" Dan had exclaimed, reading the name that the letter had been addressed to. "I never knew."

"It is." Mo said with a grin. "But too many syllables."