Hello everyone.
I'm back again with my time jumping, strangely formatted stories. I'd recommend viewing this at half page since I always write with tight margins. To everyone still watching my profile who actually checked this out thanks for all the likes and follows in my absence. I'm a very sporadic member of every fandom I'm a part of an it's nice to be able to reward your collective patience. I also created a tumblr with the same username as a url (it's a side blog so I can't follow back!) as a way of archiving and getting more experimental with how I present my writing. Check it out if you're interested.
Until later, xx Golden
It's the strangest thing, I think idly as I stare out into the streets at a pair of teenagers breaking into a car, to feel time in the act of running out. Nate and Serena haven't moved since the news item has started, I don't know whether it's for lack of knowing what to say (Serena) or quite simply fear (Nate) maybe it's both.
I can hear Serena's question, in her husky yet demure voice before she even asks it, "What are we going to do?"
I also know Nate's answer before he utters the words, "We'll just lay low."
/
Just under a year passes and after the first round of screening with the bio-scanners the government enforces registration. China, Hawaii and Australia are the only places left that stand against the act of registering Alters.
That's what we are called.
About 50% of us developed this way as a result of taking the anti-climate change vaccines. The rest of us, well let's just say what I thought was a flu shot was really my non-existent consent to sign up for a blind control cross-study. New York was the hub for the blind studies the internet says, the city that never slept had an ideal diverse populous to catalogue.
Serena had never believed in flu shots.
/
Time marches on, we have moved out of the city by this point, it is not safe. Martha's Vineyard was abandoned 3 years ago, due to how unstable I've become Nate sold, stole, cheated and lied to sneak us back in here unnoticed. We're at the highest point he could find, so we can see every and anything coming he says. Why couldn't we see this?
"Blood checks?" Serena is beside herself. "Nate what are we going to do? Even with me inside your damn pocket you can't protect anyone!"
It's been hard to get used to her with the brown hair, it's been 4 years since she's been blonde but I still expect to see bright yellow fly about when she explodes as she is now.
Nate is sitting on a worn armchair, his elbows rest on his knees, his chin on his thumbs with his index fingers covering his lips. 5 Minutes pass and Serena storms out the back onto the wooden deck that is run down by salt, sun and time - a metaphor for our life. Nate either doesn't notice she's not around anymore or he just doesn't care when he finally speaks, "We have to leave, I know someone who said when the time came, an emergency, to call on them."
"Where?" He jumps at the sound of my voice, I hardly speak when I don't have to anymore.
"Australia."
/
It is late, dark and raining on a Wednesday when we pack and drive for hours and hours until we reach a dock. I don't know where we are but I don't ask, it really doesn't matter anyway. The last person I was expecting to greet us was Carter Baizen, Serena is shocked but then accepts this quickly, like as if to say to herself, who else could it be sneaking us out of America? He is using his norm status to help those in need, seems like the world becoming the worst it could be brought out the best in him.
He wraps a strand of Serena's hair around his finger, his eyebrows raised in a teasing way, and she favours him one of her oldest widest smiles I've seen in a while.
"You're like the rest of us now, however will we find our way in the dark?"
I want to say even if her hair was white we'll never make it out of this but I remain still, staring blankly at a spot on Serena's shoulder when he sees me.
"Blair…" He kisses Serena hurriedly as she starts to walk up the ramp before turning his full attention on me.
"I'm sorry. I heard about your loss…losses I guess." I shrug silently but he simply takes one of my hands clasping it tightly and pulling it to the middle of his chest before wrapping his other hand behind my neck. It is not stifling, or controlling, this is an act of condolence and comfort.
He looks me evenly in my face and sighs, "Whatever the past, you did not deserve to take quite so many blows. I'm sorry B."
A single tear slides down my cheek but I make no effort to move or speak.
I only lean up and press a soft peck over his lips before stepping around him and walking up the ramp.
We will go to Hawaii first then onto our final destination.
We've developed a habit of sleeping in the same room, Nate needs Serena nearby and I need him. Serena just needs to know we're still here, I look at her face as she sleeps now - she is having a nightmare. I imagine it is of the night when her mother says to her that it's better she not know where they're taking Eric, that she shouldn't even be telling her goodbye but she just has to. She told me that she cried so hard she didn't think she would breathe again.
My heart broke for her even as I thought, at least you have the hope that they're out there somewhere.
Instead I just held her.
My hand finds Nate's shoulder on on the mattress behind me before I've shifted onto my back. He sighs out a 'Hmm'. before slowly but steadily fixing a gaze on me, waiting.
"Nightmare." I say quickly.
In what feels like an age old ballet, he props himself up on one elbow and looks over at Serena, it's dim; a candle is under a lantern in the opposite corner. He then takes his other arm and it goes to my waist, pulling me closer to him as he begins to maneuver us to switch places so that he can calm Serena down. We are laid out on a king mattress on the floor in the corner of a room, hidden away as the boat goes on rocking from side to side ever so slightly. As Serena's whimpers intensify then fade out after Nate pulls her into his side his hand finds mine in the darkness.
The days of me hating her for stealing my boyfriend, hating him for wanting her, feeling not good enough for either of them seem so, so fickle and impossibly far away. This is dark, it is desperate but it's real, we are all dedicated to each other's survival.
One bottle of any strong liquor is all it takes for the hard, neutral lines we've drawn to fall away. Though these days that's the last thing on any one's mind, and since I've started talking less Nate has been more careful with me, protective but rarely intimate. Serena is consistent in her inconsistency, sometimes she is my friend from my childhood, sometimes the train wreck, and sometimes this new Serena who almost seems out of touch with reality.
One night I sit with the latter, she's playing in my hair, I always know she's disengaged when her face and voice take on this otherworldly serene quality. Her cigarette hangs limply in her other hand, I sit on the ground in front her as she is propped up sideways on the same worn armchair we all rotate on.
"Why the blue B?" she grazes my scalp affectionately and my eyelids flutter shut as I realize she's gone elsewhere in that moment.
Because Serena knows the answer to that question, knows the whole story because she was there. My hair's shade, tones and streaks change and grow in direct proportion to my alter effects. The ends are the bluest, this happens the time we were in the car heading to the vineyard and we get the call that my father's chalet is gone.
I became, all too quickly, too much for Nate to soothe. He pulled the truck to the side and ran around to my door tearing it open, I felt myself beginning to hum as the sobs racked my body. A low vibrate that climbed higher and higher with each laboured breath.
"Blair…Blair? Blair!" I remember him taking hold of my hand only to get a burn as a reward. The tears only came faster at the sound of his hiss and profane outcry and he looked at me then begging forgiveness even as it was I who spun out of control.
"Run." he whispers and behind him I see the waterfront.
I got a few strides away from the water before I heard Eric's broken voice replay in my mind, 'Blair, Roman and your mother made it out, Harold and my mum didn't.'
We are not invincible.
I managed to make it under the water just in time but blacked out shortly after I in short order, imploded then exploded.
I came to at the house, my head in Nate's lap as he sat propped up against a solid mahogany headboard a book in his hand. Nate stopped shaving after he discovered his alterism, he has a full beard that he trims but never gets rid of.
It's shaggy unruliness only serves to confirm what we all already knew; he is unable to be anything but beautiful.
I reached up then and touched the fuzz on his face which, in turn, caused him to drop the book without a thought to his place and clap his other hand over mine.
The sight of the bandage caused me to sit up almost too fast.
"No..". I don't know who I think will hear my plea, or what I'm even asking for.
I am just racked with guilt.
"Hey. Heeyyy." He moved closer so his legs were on either side of me, and ran both his hands across my face and over my head. I realized then that my hair was pulled back into a wet severe bun which caused me to reach for the clip at the crown of my head. It was fast but I saw his expression flicker with an unreadable hesitance.
He repeat himself, even more gentle than before, "Hey, look at me one second."
But I was uninterested in being eased in, I snapped the clip away rebelliously and searched for the first mirror I could find, which happened to be directly behind me.
A shocking blue colour made its way up from the bottom of my long hair, as though my ends were dipped in paint. I scurried off the bed and to the distressed white vanity pressing my hands on the dusty surface leaning in to the mirror.
"What?" was all I managed to squeeze out, even as my throat protested against the one syllable.
My hair would continue with each incident of instability, different intensities gaining different results until any brown in my mane is a distant memory.
The moments in front the mirror play behind my lids now as Serena tugs lightly waiting for me to reply to her.
Nate comes to stand behind me and sweeps it all to one side before placing a hand on my exposed shoulder and dropping a kiss to my temple. His face remains pressed in this spot, his eyes closed.
"I wanted a chance to tell you first, we fished you out like this. Blair…I'm sorry I couldn't help yo…"
I spin around then, sudden and just filled to the brim with too many emotions to name, "Don't you dare apologize to me Nathaniel, just… don't…"
I reach for his bandaged hand and hold it between us before kissing him and leaving him alone.
"Just being silly S." I say softly.
The sound of one of the untraceable phones startles you awake, you look over at the digital clock on the wall, why on earth would someone think you're down for a 3 am conversation? You swing your hand over the edge of the bed and slide the small basket out into your line of sight expecting to see a light of some sort in there. What you find is faint, small and green and you realize it's one of the very oldest models at the bottom.
You clear your throat once before dryly intoning, 'secure line go ahead.'
"Hey." the other line crackles.
'Carter.' you fall back onto your pillow and roll to your side waiting.
"Drop off." is all he says, can never be too careful these days.
'When.' you ask, anxious to chuck the phone back in the basket, he knows time differences and should have known better than to call at this ungodly hour.
"Four days out." he damn near chirps.
Yeah he called at this time on purpose. Fucking guy.
All you do is spare him a grunt before hitting the end button. He begins to speak but you take great pleasure in cutting him off. Details, details.
In four days as you sit in the bed of your pick up, doodling in margins toying with pulling the cigarette from behind your ear, when you first spot the boat come around the coast line. It takes another 30 minutes before it's pulling in, it has been 45 minutes total since first spotting the vessel when you first lay eyes on them.
Merciful fuck.
It takes you a while, they're like reverse reflections of themselves, the super shiny Nate Archibald is resembling a really pretty mountain man, Serena once the focal point of your teenage dreams has gone over to the dark side. Her eyes stand out amidst a sea of chocolate that swims all the way down her back. A girl with blue hair gets out after them, it's a wild thing - something entirely unto itself. Baby blues, deep royal shaded chunks and even some shades of bold cerulean… wait…
Is that Blair freakin' Waldorf?
You are officially in the twilight zone.
The three of them walk single file, Nate's arm outstretched behind him clasping Blair's small hand, guess that's back on… the one to spot you first is Waldorf.
She stops dead in her tracks, causing Nate to jerk to a stop while Serena continues unaware albeit still managing to be the second one to notice you and her eyes go wide. Blair's face contorts into the frown and glare you remember well and she folds her arms before fixing Nate with a look that is pure betrayal.
You turn to leave, a kneejerk not at all thought out reaction and like a blasted Phantom, Carter steps in front you, "Shouldn't have hung up that phone Daniel."