SERENA POV
Of Shots and Men
Serena Van Der Woodsen downs the shot, gulping back the burning liquid with a sense of relish. It's been a while since her head started tingling and now her vision is slightly fuzzy around the edges. It isn't enough. She can still see her mother Lily's face as she tells Serena that she is an embarrassment to the family name.
Who is Lily to judge anyway? Serena thinks bitterly, gesturing wildly at the bartender to keep the shots coming. It isn't like Serena has married and divorced half the Upper East Side.
The body heat of the guy next to her is uncomfortable but she doesn't care enough to try to push him away. No doubt he belongs to one of the drop dead gorgeous socialites she would be brushing shoulders with if she was at her usual club. Or does he belong to her? She can't quite remember, but the way he looks at her is definitely the look of a single man. Of course, even married men look at her like they are single so that isn't much of an indication.
Serena looks around at the dank, dirty interior of the bar she picked to drown her sorrows in. She hates the fact that one word from her mostly absent mother can turn her constantly happy countenance into one that wants a dimly lit den of iniquity. Except it isn't just the fact that Lily thinks she is humiliating, she also wants to send Serena away to boarding school so that they 'can keep the situation contained'. Serena downs more shots, waiting for her mother's face to disappear and trying to ignore the fact that some time in the last few years she'd been downgraded from a daughter into a situation.
After another round Serena turns to the man next to her, too drunk to take in any of his features, although a small part of her brain says attractive.
"Did you come with me?" She asks, not bothering to hide the slur in her voice. The man smiles at her and pulls his bar stool closer.
"If I say no will that ruin my chances of leaving with you?" he asks. Serena giggles, not caring that he's only saying a different version of the same line she's heard a thousand times.
"Hmm." She murmurs, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "Who said I was leaving?"
The man leans forwards and whispers in her ear "That would be the bartender who just cut you off."
Serena frowns and glances at the barman, he looks back at her worriedly. He probably doesn't want her to make a scene - drunken underage girls would be bad for the bar even though it has no reputation to uphold. Huh. She can't seem to get away from giving people a bad name.
She considers leaving with her bar buddy; it isn't like this would be the first time. Except last time she woke up alone in an unfamiliar apartment without money or even a phone.
It had taken two hours for Chuck Bass' PI to track her down and when they finally found her Blair rushed in with almost never seen before tears on her face. Nate had been pale and drawn, his hair a mess where he had obviously pulled it in a way he only does when he is close to panicking. Even Chuck looked less put together than usual, his bowtie undone and his signature scarf forgotten.
After they were back at Blair's apartment Nate had taken Serena aside and made her promise not to leave with anyone unless she told one of her three best friends first.
Normally Serena doesn't do promises because she never breaks them, but when he'd looked at her with those intense blue eyes she couldn't refuse him. It was a change from the usual - they all knew that he could never refuse her anything but it was a shock to find out that when he really asked for something she couldn't refuse him either.
Serena turns to the man next to her and tries her best to look earnestly at him.
"I promised Natie I wouldn't disappear anymore." It was meant to sound more firm and professional but somehow the alcohol turns it into a little girls sentence. The man smirks.
"Natie your boyfriend?" he asks, clearly just indulging her and not caring whether the answer is yes or no.
"He's... He's just..." Even on her sober days Serena doesn't have a word to describe who Nate is to her.
Everyone else has a place: Lily is her absentee mother. Bart Bass is her all powerful, intimidating step-father. Chuck Bass is her newly acquired brother, long time best friend, fellow drinker, and familiar. Blair Waldorf is her closest friend, her opposite, her protector, and sometimes her toughest critic. Nate is... sunshine, warmth, calm, and summer. How do you explain that to someone?
You just can't, Serena decides.
She throws her hand in the air and doesn't bother finishing her sentence. The man doesn't seem to mind, he has a strange look on his face that Serena can't seem to interpret through the vodka.
"At least let me walk you to the street and get you a cab." He says.
Serena thinks about it, decides that she's not actually breaking her promise to Nate, and nods. The man slips an arm around her and steers her through the crowd. When they finally push outside it's freezing but he doesn't seem to notice her shivering. Nate would notice. She thinks angrily, the little girl in her wanting the comfort Nate always brings.
A cab appears quickly and Serena falls into it. Just as she is about to close the door the man grabs hold of it.
"You're going to let me share a cab with you, aren't you?" he asks.
Serena looks at him confused. She doesn't remember him talking about a shared cab before. Finally she shrugs and moves over to let him in.
"Only if I get dropped off first." She says, once again trying to sound firm and once again failing.
"Sure thing sweetheart."
Serena can't get her mind to focus on where they are going but when the cab grinds to a stop outside a building she knows she is nowhere near her destination. She looks at the man next to her and he gives her a sly grin.
"I thought you might want to come up to my apartment."
Serena shudders and quickly opens her door, instinctively reacting to a situation her mind can't really process. She stumbles onto the footpath and rushes down the street, ignoring the calls from the man behind her. She makes her way along the sidewalk, constantly having to remind her disobedient legs that concrete means yes, pitchmen means no.
She doesn't exactly know where she's going and somewhere between one step and another it doesn't just become about getting away from the sleazy guy, it's about getting away from the whole world.
