Title: A World Without Blair Waldorf
Type: Single Chapter
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Rating: T
Ship: Blair/Nate
P.O.V: Nate
Time Period: Post S.1 Finale
Summary: He laughs to himself bitterly as he notices her dancing with the men whose women he should be flirting with. Post S.1 Finale. B/N
For Jordan (BN x love), because B/N is how we roll.
Name: Nathaniel Archibald
Location: Manhattan, New York
Describe yourself in three words: World's Biggest Fuck-up.
I.
Perhaps Nate is meant to feel this way.
Always trying to overlook the fact that he has made a mess of things (once again) and to feel alone.
Day after day.
Everyday.
And feel like the failure he is.
The failure that he is going to be for the rest of his life.
II.
"I wish I was dead," he murmurs to himself as he lies rigid on one of the deck chairs at the Van Der Woodsen Hamptons house that summer.
His pale skin isn't absorbing the sun's rays like it should.
Serena comes out with two glasses of lemonade in her hand and hands him one.
Nate isn't so sure what he would do without a friend like her around.
Especially now that he has no one.
"Ugh, Nate," frowns Serena, gazing out at the pool in the wide, stone-paved yard. "Don't think that. I've already had one important person in my life try to kill themself, I don't want another."
He nods solemnly, letting Serena's fake laughter, fake smiles and fake sparkling blue eyes distract him from his brooding thoughts.
Nate ponders if he is in anyway distracting her from Dan.
--
It is his first day back in New York from the Hamptoms when Nate notices the things amiss.
Chuck is in the city and Blair isn't.
Just by thinking of her name, Nate couldn't help but shrink in is skin.
She left him.
(He let her go.)
She doesn't miss him.
(He does.)
Not one phone call, or text, or email.
Not even a single goodbye.
--
Nate slams Chuck against the wall of his suite the next morning.
(Having found out from a much stubborn Serena that Blair went to Tuscany herself.)
"What's the matter with you?" Chuck snarls, clearly not pleased with his best friend's hands around his throat (again).
"You told me you loved Blair," he growls, tightening his grip. "How could you do that to her?"
"She's a big girl Nate!" Chuck pushes him back. "She can take care of herself!"
"Blair doesn't need to take care of herself when you should be with her right now!" Nate retorts.
He recoils further into his skin.
"Well I'm not!" roars Chuck, "and I don't think I ever will be."
"Why the hell not?"
"I'm not like you," the dark haired boy replies. "I can't settle myself down with her like you have."
"What are you talking about?" Nate shrieks. "You know first hand that I've never settled down for anything with Blair!"
III.
Blair and Chuck fight constantly throughout senior year.
Nate stares at them in pure envy, hoping deep down that they will call it quits for good.
They don't.
And their relationship is on and off much more than it's ever been with him and Blair.
He watches his best friend and ex-girlfriend sneak off together when they think no one is watching.
But Nate is watching. He's always watching.
He still hopes they realize how wrong they are for each other and that a couple can only fight and break up so many times.
When they are halfway past senior year Nate has given up.
All his hoping and wishing (and praying), isn't going to help him.
--
He has no father. The Captain, Howie, is dead.
(At least to Nate he is.)
The only valuable lesson he has taught Nate is: don't do the crime, if you can't do the time.
Now that he is gone, there is nothing stopping Nate from pursuing his dream of not attending Dartmouth and heading out west, to UCLA.
No father, no mother (Nate ignores her pleading) and no Blair.
And that is what hurts the most.
Realizing that he is going to be separated from Blair from then on and the condition between them is going to become worse.
IV.
Nate can feel his emotions dry up.
Things that matter don't anymore. Things that are beautiful now seem nothing out of the ordinary.
The California sun is different from the sun in New York. The more time he spends in it, the less time he wants out.
That's when Nate notices the cute, tanned, tall brunette at one of the freshman parties he is at.
She looks nothing like Blair (minus the brown hair) and that is why ten minutes later, Nate fully divests of their clothing.
"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asks, nibbling roughly at her collarbone as he finds it a way to release the anguish that is building up inside.
"No," she manages to respond, clinging to the bed sheets.
--
California makes him want to hurl.
With all its beaches, sunshine and happy faces. It's sickening.
He wants it to rain so hard that the beach sand turns to muck and the skies won't be blue and everyone is as miserable and lonely as he is.
Nate seems out of place with his toneless persona that he has grown from being away from everything and everyone he cares about.
He misses winter (the chill and the snow); misses Chuck and his sarcastic humour (Nate can't recall the last time he has had a decent talk with him); misses his mother; misses Serena and her gift of smiling even when she's dying inside; misses Blair.
Nate wonders where she is.
--
He goes after girls wearing black.
Black bikinis; black skirts; black spaghetti straps; black shorts.
All to match his black heart.
Nate stops asking women if they are seeing someone. It isn't his fault he could be ruining someone's relationship.
If Nate could, he would stomp on every cheerful spirit in the god damn state just so someone else could feel as heartbroken as he is.
In the middle of it all, Nate is convinced he has turned into Chuck as he fucks the first girl (wearing black) that looks at him.
Sometimes he questions if he is having sex with a girl who Chuck has gotten to first.
It wouldn't be the first time.
And sometimes, when he is with a brunette (which is often), Nate imagines it is Blair panting underneath him instead of someone he rarely sees on campus.
But it never is.
(However that doesn't change the fact that her name slips from his lips occasionally.)
V.
"Hey Nate," comes the voice of another sophomore girl as she wraps her arms around him.
He pushes out of the tight cage she has built, forcefully. He remembers having sex with her a week before school let out a couple of months ago.
"How was your summer?" she asks in awe, twirling a strand of blonde hair in between her thumb and fore finger.
(It is something Blair would never do.)
"Fine," he answers dully. Terrible.
Nate flew back to New York for a few weeks, expecting to feel whole again, expecting the darkness of his heart to brighten.
But it doesn't.
Sure, he and Chuck had caught up (silently banning the topic of Blair because she and Chuck have broken up, for good), and went to lunch with Serena and he had even talked over the phone with his father.
Blair was nowhere to be found.
(Not that he was looking.)
(He was.)
"Oh, that's good!" she smiles widely at him. Nate knows what is coming next. "Do you want to grab some coffee on Saturday?"
This is the hundredth girl he has sacked that is asking him out. He wonders what all of them seem in him.
Nate is a distant, gloomy and ominous student at UCLA who can't wait to get out of school. Nothing can penetrate his aloofness.
"No," Nate declines monotonously, watching as she drops her hand suddenly and looks as though she is going to cry.
He doesn't care if every single girl in the world loves him. He doesn't love any one of them back.
(Except, maybe one.)
So this is how a world without Blair feels like.
--
It's another brunette.
Nate can hear her try to catch her breath after they finish.
It's an additional night where he is imagining its Blair who is lying under the covers beside him.
"You don't remember me, do you?"
His head snaps over towards her. She is sitting up, the thin blanket is covering her bare torso. Nate searches her face for a few seconds before realizing it is the first girl he has had sex (after Blair) ever since coming to California.
"You're that girl…," he says, trying to remember her name (if he even asked for it), "from that party…"
"It's Jocelyn," she laughs, as she is now out of bed and is hunting for her clothes. "I guess that you've been doing this too much to remember names."
"Yeah well." Nate doesn't continue and begins searching for his clothes too. He isn't even at his own place. (He tries recalling how he got the keys to his friend's apartment.)
"She must be a lucky girl," comments Jocelyn while she succeeds in pulling her black top over her head.
"What?" he enquires drearily, slightly baffled.
"I've seen you around campus, snagging so many girls that I think my friends and I have lost count…"
Nate glares at her. (And not in the playful type of way.)
Girls actually counts how many other girls he had been with?
(Well, what did he expect?)
"—and it's pretty obvious this isn't your character. You're doing this to forget someone, aren't you?"
He doesn't react because it's true. He's been doing this to forget her, to forget Blair. But it is painfully clear that Nate can't. No matter how many girls he kisses, or strips, or spends an entire night with.
VI.
Nate dresses as perfectly as he can.
It's over perfect.
He is lounging around in the lobby of the four season's hotel, attending a bachelor party of one of his friends from UCLA. (Nate contemplates of ever finding someone he is going to spend the rest of his life with at such a young age.)
(Or ever.)
"It's your last night of freedom, man!" a guy shouts.
"Say goodbye to sex," another one laughs.
"It's not 'goodbye to sex'," the groom confirms, "It's having sex with only one person for the rest of my life."
Nate wants that so badly.
He twitches every time he remembers exactly how many girls he's been with. He shudders as he remembers exactly how many girls he's been with after Blair.
"Hey I have an idea—"one of his friends interrupts his thinking. "Let's crash the bachelorette party."
The other males agree.
"No way! I'm not upsetting my future wife!" the groom protests.
"Be that way, we're heading up!" the boys gather around the elevator as the groom follows suit with no trace of disinclination.
Nate trails behind reluctantly. He has no intention in finding a woman and checking a suite out that night.
--
The top floor is full of more women than he expects.
But they all look the same. No one in particular stands out.
Instantly, the other men start filing off to find a girl to chat with while Nate stays put.
And there is it: a sudden sound that almost knocks him off his feet, catches his breath and punches him in the gut.
Blair's laughter.
Nate looks around hysterically because he is certain that he isn't dreaming.
And there she is: standing in the middle of a group of women, looking as gorgeous and shiny as he last remembers seeing her (wearing a red dress).
Nate tries desperately to gain eye contact with her while he gazes intently at her beautiful face as she socializes with the people around her.
And at last Blair turns her head (misleadingly) in his direction and the drink that is in her hand almost slips.
They stare absorbedly at each other before Nate takes it as his cue to push past the other woman and grab Blair's hand to take her away from the bunch.
"You better bring her back spotless!" they order.
He ignores the demand because now that Blair is in front of him, he thinks he has lost his mind.
"How?" he spoke softly hoping that she hears him over the loud music.
(She does.)
"One of my good friends at Yale is the bride's twin," she explains softly, looking up at him as if she hasn't seen him in decades.
(A year and a half is close enough.)
He can feel his ice cold exterior melting by the way her brown eyes are speculating him.
"Where were you last summer?" Nate asks like he needs an explanation.
"France. Visiting my dad," replies Blair.
"It's so good to see you," he confesses.
"Yeah, you too."
By the time Blair returns to her spot across the top floor to where her friends are, Nate doesn't think there is an ounce of dullness left in him.
--
Nate is aware of how half-heartedly she is talking to the other women now, compared to how animatedly she did previously.
They are staring at each other again and he subconsciously loosens his tie.
"Nate?" One of his friend's calls him over. "There's a problem."
He grudgingly breaks his gaze from Blair.
Nate is taken back when he sees the groom crying.
"What's wrong?" he questions as the other men crowd around looking at Nate awkwardly. They most likely expect him to be uncaring about the situation, like he had been when he first showed up at UCLA.
"What if I'm making a mistake?" the groom wails.
"Don't you love your wife-to-be?"
"Of course I do, she's everything," he sniffs.
"Then go tell her that and remind yourself that you are not making a mistake," advises Nate, holding out his hand. The groom takes it graciously before heading off to find his bride.
And that is what Nate has to do.
He has to go find Blair and remind himself that she is his everything (and she always will be).
When Nate returns to the rest of the party he laughs to himself bitterly as he notices her dancing with the men whose women he should be flirting with.
(But he doesn't want to flirt with anyone but Blair.)
He walks up to the current man that is holding her and gets their attention.
"Do you mind if I cut in?" he intervenes, watching Blair smirk from the corner of his eyes.
"Uh yes man, I'm kind of in the middle of dancing here," the guy responds, giving Nate a look that spelt: I'm-going-to-bang-this-chick-the-minute-this-party-ends.
"Don't worry," Blair breaks away from him, and stands in front of Nate. "I'll save you the last dance Danny."
Danny grins and walks away to find another woman to chat with in the meantime.
"Please tell me you're not going to save him the last dance," says Nate, as a slow song began to blare throughout the floor. He delicately draws her body closer to his and wraps his arms around her waist.
The last thing he wants is Danny's intentions coming true.
"Why, are you jealous?" she laughs, looking up at him.
"Crazy jealous."
Nate doesn't need to recall the way things had ended between them. He doesn't need to recall how they had parted. He just needs to hold Blair near and everything is going to be alright.
He knows so.
VII.
"You're…not…with…anyone…are you?" he whispers in between kisses.
Nate hasn't asked a girl the question for as long as he can remember.
"If I was, I'd leave him right now, for this," Blair answers, pushing his dress shirt off his shoulders. "For you."
And this time he doesn't need to imagine or wish a brunette is Blair because it is Blair. The real Blair. His Blair.
In amidst their wheezy kissing and heated sounds he doesn't need to remember who he has become ever since leaving New York. Blair has brought it back. She has broken down his walls of sullenness with her voice and her ability to love which Nate thought he lost.
Nate doesn't need to worry about who he is going to spend the rest of life with, because he is more than sure it is with the beautiful woman beneath him.
He has Blair now (for a reason only god knows why) and Nate knows that with all the hearts he has broken and all the things that could have been, he isn't about to let her go.
Not again.
And his black heart isn't black anymore.
The curse is broken.
Blair's heart is as red as red can be, and now, his is too.
Name: Nathaniel Archibald
Location: Suite 1622 of the Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles, California
Describe yourself in three words: Luckiest Man Alive