Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl, any brands mentioned, or this song which just made me think of Nate and his twisted relationships with Serena and Blair.
I'm conflicted, I inhale now I'm addicted. To this place, to you, babe… I can't stay away… I was numb, for you I come. Night and day.
- The Veronicas "I Can't Stay Away"
INHALE
-A Gossip Girl OneShot by: Honour Society-
Choices. Nate had had enough awkward conversations over flawless china plates and antique gravy boats about how awful he was at making them. The Idiot's Guide to Making Life Choices sounded pretty awesome right about then, as he found himself engaged in one such conversation.
"How are things with Blair, son?"
A simple question, really.
Except it wasn't.
Not at all.
He was no fool. He knew Blair Waldorf was a complex girl, with lots of demands and expectations that he could barely brush by, let alone hold on to. More than half of the stuck-up St. Jude's student body would kill to be in his position. Blair may be complicated, but she was also widely regarded as a goddess of sorts. Especially after she'd lost that pesky thing called her "virginity."
Nate gulped, his infamous glittering green eyes darting from desk to chair to plate to feet. Anything but the steely gaze of The Captain.
"Fine," he managed between shovels of green peas.
"Just fine?" Anne Archibald asked archly, her bleached eyebrows jumping sky-high.
"Blair's a wonderful girl." Captain stretched out "wonderful" giving it about a million syllables.
"Better than fine, I mean." Blank stares all around. "Amazing, I mean!"
The vacant gazes of his WASP-y parents transformed into gentle smiles. Content murmurs of "great" and "perfect" and "lovely" and other such useless phrases were passed around the great oaken dining table. Anne fixed her attention on the Captain's account of his business day, in between delicate forkfuls of iceberg lettuce (no dressing, naturally) brought to her Russian Red-lipstick'd mouth. Nate resisted the urge to barf up his smoked salmon. Did all women act this way? Blair certainly did. Sometimes he had no clue why they were still together. And other times he couldn't remember why he'd ever bothered with other girls. On occasion, Blair could be surprisingly nice and sweet and perfect. Especially just after sex, when her whole, lanky body was glowing and she couldn't help grinning and she would talk and talk and talk about every little thing she thought of. He loved her then.
If only those times outweighed the why-am-I-still-with-her? times.
"Serena," he breathed her name as her long fingers curled lazy circles in his artfully messy longish hair. Wearing a gold minidress with intricate patterns that made Nate's pot-muddled mind pound, he couldn't take his eyes of her natural beautiful. Serena was simple. She was always There. Not Here, Over There and Around The Corner like Blair was. And oh, God. Now he was thinking about her while making out with Serena. Why did life have to be so confusing?
Suddenly, Nate remembered something (Now, you must understand that he never had a very good memory. So when he did remember something, the world seemed to be put on 'Pause'):
"Silly Nate," Blair Waldorf giggled, high-pitched and girlie as the fourteen-year-old faux-punched the tanned Archibald boy in his taut forearm. Serena was on his other side. Lately they'd taking to walking home, insisting to their various nannies and parents and drivers that being shuttled everywhere was simply uncool. And they were Blair, Serena and Nate. They never did anything cool.
"What'd I say now?" he whined, imitating the petite brunette's soprano tone. Blair pouted her shimmery lips and swung an arm around her best-best-best friend, Serena van der Woodsen. Serena's fingers tapped out a rhythm on the thigh of her True Religion low-rise jeans that only she knew.
"Blair's right," chimed in the blonde, though she had no idea in the faintest what the on-again, off-again (who were currently very very on) couple were discussing.
"She always is," Nate added sagely, unsmiling. This of course, caused an eruption of laughter from Mount Blair. Nate's hands found Blair's own and they pulled each other in close.
"Am I in trouble?"
Blair shook her head of glossy curls 'no.' She bit her cherry-coloured lip and trotted on ahead, passing the horse carriages of Central Park and a full pack of cheapy drug store cigarettes.
"Good." Nate nodded, instantly catching up with his girlfriend. "That's what I like to hear..." he paused, a frown passing by his chiselled features and plowed on, "So, what exactly was I being silly about?"
"You said, and I quote," Blair took out four pale fingers to act as air quotations. "'I'm so lucky to have you both.' You know you can only have one of us!"
Nate frowned at this, but quickly recovered with a tentative grin.
"And, naturally! That one is me!"
"Naturally," Nate whispered. Back to reality. And, in this reality, Serena van der Woodsen was barely clothed (dress pulled over her head) and willing. The question of course was, Was Nate ready?
And, 'naturally' the answer was this: Yes. Yesyesyesyes.
"Blair," Nate said, in the darkness of the late-June night. School would be finished in a week's time and the teachers had stopped caring about foreign notions like "attendance" and "work."
"Yes Nate?" Her voice is so full of hope, of life. He wished he could hum the words she longs to hear, until it becomes a song meant only for her that constantly replays. But he can't. He can't unless he has Blair standing at her five-four height, beside Serena's five-eleven, where he can truly decide if Blair Cornelia Waldorf is the one he loves more than all others.
He does love her. He just doesn't know how much.
The rooftop of Serena's apartment seemed to quake, to shiver, with every cool breeze blown that night in August. All night long, Nate and Serena and Blair and Chuck and Blair's cronies, Kati and Isobel, had talked about high school. It stood like a huge anvil atop each and every one of their impeccably highlighted and combed heads. Every though they wouldn't have to transfer schools like those poor public school kids, they understood that their was a world of difference between the upper school and lower school.
"Count the stars." Serena shook her golden tresses —sticky from the city's humidity — off the delicate curve of her tanned neck. She directs all of her attention (which is hard for the practically ADHD girl) on the boy beside her, whose palm rested on the small of Blair Waldorf's back — which steadily rose and fell under Nate's hand as the Audrey Hepburn-lookalike slept.
"Isn't that a book? By Lois Lane or something?"
"No, silly Natie!" Serena's gloss-free lips curled up into an easy, natural smile. "That's Number The Stars! And not by Lois Lane! By...uh, what's her name? We talked about her in English class?"
"Lois Lowry," Blair muttered in her sleep. Always answering questions.
Serena burst out in unexpected chortles. "Thanks B!" the blonde said, even though it was obvious Blair couldn't really hear. Or, if she could hear, she had no clue where she was.
No words needed to be exchanged with the pair. Serena's sea-blue eyes bore into Nate's own green ones and, in a flurry of smacks and puckers, lips found lips and the kissing didn't stop until Blair started moaning in her sleep, "Nate! Not Serena! Me, me, me!" which was just too weird to listen to, while making out.
Across the table, Nate smiled at the girl in the almost mockingly preppy tweed skirt and matching blazer. The girl whose tiny size-6 feet have been stuffed into size-4 Prada pumps, because she couldn't find her size at Neiman's so she had to go smaller and even though the pain was probably killing her, she still sits with ballerina-perfect posture, a ready smile and the girlish laugh that makes guys swoon and parents melt.
Stiffly, a tweed headband has been placed like a crown over her corkscrew curls. Elegantly, her fingers flutter on her face as she struggles to come up with The Right Word. "Vigilante!" she finally pronounces with a happy lilt that charms the entire room. Nate smirks. He knows this version of Blair; Blair 2.0 he likes to call it, very well. This Blair quotes famous philosophers without a missed slyllable, dresses to the nines for the simplest of get-togethers, knows Yale's college courses like the back of her hand and is never without a witty Blair-ism to spout when things get awkward. He loves this Blair, but he loves the silly, chipper Blair even better.
"Natie!"
Inhaling the scent of Serena's custom-made perfume (aptly titled, Serena's Tears) that has been methodically sprayed on her pulse points, he found himself far too close to the blonde's bare neck for comfort. Nate didn't have too look up to know that Blair's disapproving glare would be pointed at him with laser-beam accuracy.
"Serena…"
"What is it, Natiekins?"
"But, Blair…"
"Nate? Nathaniel? What's wrong?"
Nate felt quite like (he assumed) a drug addict was. He was addicted. To two girls. Who happened to be best friends, worst enemies and polar opposites.
Oh, Hell.