Title: Save you, save me.
Show: Gossip Girl
Character/Relationships: Serena, Eric, hints of pretty much every relationship Serena ever had.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Gossip Girl related.
Note: Written for the third challenge wbcw_las, but a bit longer. The prompt was family reunion. AUs that takes of during 4.10, contents no spoiler for the episode though.
Summary: She wanted to save him. Them. But somehow he managed to save himself and she is still drowning.
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The first time she opens her eyes, Eric is there, sitting in an uncomfortable hospital chair next to her bed. He doesn't even look at her, and it is not like she can blame him. It lingers between them, makes it hard to breath.
You're my little brother, that's not enough.
She wants to take it back, she does, wants everything to be okay again, to pull her little brother close, to hug him and whisper it's going to be okay, we have each other, that's enough into his ear. Like before. But she is not 12 any more and she knows that nothing is going to be okay. And that, somehow, it is not enough any more. She wonders when it stopped, wonders when she turned into her mother.
She never wanted to hurt him, but she did mean it. Serena knows what her problem is. (It is her mum's problem too.) Nothing is ever enough for her, she always wants more, and more, and more. More than Eric, more than Blair. More than Nate or Dan. So she takes until there is nothing left, until she has nothing left. It is not like she does it on purpose, but it always ends the same.
She does not know what to say to him, how to explain it, so she just lays there, stares straight ahead.
Because Blair is not the only one who believes in fairy tales, once upon a time Nate was her prince charming too. Because when Daddy leaves, Nate stays. She is more surprised than anyone, that when she fucks him on that bar and it turns everything to ashes.
He is supposed to save her, not break her completely. But she breaks, shatters into a thousand pieces and she cannot put herself together, there are pieces missing, Daddy steals some, Nate too. And Pete takes a lot of them with him when he dies. Those pieces are lost forever.
She runs like it is the only thing she has ever done. (Maybe it is.) But it is not Nate's face that she sees at night when she closes her eyes. (It is not Pete's either, even if haunts her in her dreams sometimes.)
Because their hair is a different kind of blond and their eyes were never that blue.
She has never been more scared than when she gets the call. Because Eric was supposed to be the strong one, the sane one.
Hours later, when she sits at his hospital bed, watches him sleep and sees the heavy bandages wrapped around his wrists she still cannot believe it. She decides to change, for him, to become a good person.
A good sister.
Dan is good, she decides, so maybe he can teach her. He starts to put her back together, but then there is Georgina, and she reminds everyone that people do not change. That some pieces are lost forever. (And just like that everything is lost before it begins.) Dan decides he is too good for her, she cannot really blame him.
So she decides being good is not really her thing, and maybe she does not have to be, because Eric seems fine. They have another family now, and Eric does not have to be lonely any more. At least her mum says so.
Aaron is easy, he does not divide the world in black and white, he sees everything grey and she likes that. She likes being his muse too, it makes her feel worthy, at least until she discovers that muses only inspire others.
Carter understands, he knows what it is like. He does not judge her when she searches for someone who does not want her. (He understands that too.) She leaves with him and tells herself that it is not like the last time.
She glances at her brother, he is still not looking at her and she wonders if she made the wrong choice that day.
She did, because Carter decides she is too good for him. But that is not what matters anyway.
Tripp is nice. He wears suits just like Daddy. Leaves like him too. And this time her hearth is not the only thing that shatters in the process.
Nate is there when she opens her eyes. (Prince charming kisses her awake.) It's easy to pretend he never left, that they are still 14 and no one needs to grow up just yet.
Fate agrees because Daddy returns. Eric may not understand, but she needs him. But Daddy doesn't care, he leaves them, her, again.
Why is she the only one that is surprised?
And for the first time in her life it feels like she does not understand her little brother. He makes her feel weak, the way he does not need their father any more. (She is supposed to be the strong one.)
But now, he is sitting there, looking so put together, so whole, that it makes her want to cry.
She wanted to save him. Them. But somehow he managed to save himself and she is still drowning.
Blair takes her to Paris and makes her forget.
It is okay though, because Eric no longer needs her.
And neither do Nate or Dan. She wonders when they grew up on her.
Colin makes her feel grown up, but at the end of the day she knows she is still playing pretend. (And who is she kidding, Colin is just Tripp with a different face.) She ends it.
(Maybe it took her three years, but she feels like she finally gets it.) None of them will save her. She needs to do it herself, and for herself. Not for Blair or Eric. Not for Nate or Dan or Lily.
It hurts when they don´t believe her. Maybe it does not look like it, but she tries, she does, and now her whole body aches, her eyes burn, and she cannot remember a thing.
She feels the mattress shift underneath her. When she looks up, he is next to her, her eyes meet his. She wants to say something, but Eric looks so put together, so grown up, and she completely loses it. He does not say anything, just wraps his arms around her and buries his head in her hair.
It's probably not fair, because she was supposed to save him and not the other way around, but she still clings to him. Because he is the only family she has ever had.
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.fin.