A/N: Thank you very much for all your feedback! Trust me on the ending of this one, alright? ;)
Chapter Four
I like you to be exactly the way that you are, because in all my experience, I have never known anyone like you.
-- A Streetcar Named Desire
--
"I am going to kill you."
Carter ground the words out between clenched teeth, having stumbled out of his bed and directly to the door to answer the knocking. He didn't know what time it was, but his head was aching and heavy (this problem had only been increased by the sound of knocking at his door) and his suite at the Downing was flooded with sunlight, which meant that he was forced to squint at the person across the threshold of the door.
"Will you, now?"
He blinked a couple extra times, forcing his eyes open only to see Serena van der Woodsen standing in front of him, looking fresh as a daisy in a ragged pair of denim shorts and a flowing blue shirt made of some sort of semi-sheer fabric, the colour of which made her eyes especially bright. She was looking at him amusedly, head tilted slightly to one side.
"Well…no," he said stupidly, rubbing at his head as he watched her eyes rake over his body in one smooth motion, taking in his low-slung sweatpants and bare chest, before she brushed right by him and into his suite. "I just…I thought you were Chuck, or room service, or…someone else disposable," he joked. "What time is it?"
She didn't turn around to answer him; rather, she continued walking into his suite, almost cautiously, as though she expected someone to jump out at her any moment. Even as his eyes fought to adjust to the bright, natural light, he couldn't help but check out her ass in those Daisy-Duke-style shorts she was wearing. And though he could not see her face, he heard the amusement in her voice as she said, "It's two o'clock in the afternoon, Carter."
"Early," he muttered playfully, smiling a little when she whirled around to face him, her loose blonde hair settling onto her shoulders. He shrugged. "You can't have expected me to play the rules. My schedule's a little…unconventional."
"You sound like me," Serena remarked softly, a bit of bite slipping into her words as she added, "Two years ago."
He cracked a grin, blinking sleepily at her in what he was fairly certain was an adorable way as he crossed the room, closing some of the distance between them. "Being compared to sixteen-year-old you," he murmurs, as if it's a matter that requires deep reflection, "…I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult."
She poked his chest now that they were close enough to one another. "Being compared to me is always a compliment, though you shouldn't be too happy about being compared to a high school girl."
Carter lifted one eyebrow. "Sounds like a paradox." He watched her eyes dart toward the bathroom and frowned. "Did you come here looking for someone besides me?"
Serena bit her lip, and, much to his surprise, blushed a bit. "No, I…I came to see you."
"Sit," he commanded, but gently, gesturing toward the leather couch in his suite's living room. He took a seat on the arm of the chair across from it, giving her a bit of space, and watched as she set down her buttery-leather purse and sat as well.
"I was…looking for the girl. In your hotel room," she admitted, meeting his eyes confidently, but her cheeks were a solid shade of pink. At his look of confusion, her eyes widened a bit and she lifted a hand to wave at his tousled appearance. "Don't look so clueless. You…have a reputation. If you can't get out of bed before two p.m., what else are you up to?"
He chuckled and shook his head casually, but when he looked back at her he searched her eyes and assessed the way her hands were knotted together in her lap, looking for any signs of jealousy. "I'm a one-woman man, baby," he told her, dropping one eyelid in a wink.
Serena's back stiffened. "I'm not yours," she said, eyes flashing.
"Alright," he replied evenly, still chuckling, liking the sight of her when she was a little bit flustered. "But at this moment, you happen to be the girl in my hotel room."
Startled, she looked over at him through her eyelashes before ducking her head a little – despite that movement, he saw her lips quirk up into a smile. "Touché," she commented quietly, folding her arms and resting her elbows on her lap, leaning forward.
Carter continued to watch her, his mouth suddenly a bit dry. He ground his back teeth together, feeling uncomfortable. Did she intend for this position to allow him to look down her shirt?
"What, uh…brings you here, so early on a Sunday?"
Her eyes crinkled sweetly around the edges when she smiled. "It's two o'clock in the afternoon."
"Technicalities, beautiful."
"I was…thinking about the conversation we had. The other night, at the bar."
Carter nodded, waiting for her to extrapolate.
"I…" Serena trailed off and pressed her lips together, straightening up and leaning back into the couch cushions. He breathed a quiet sigh, no longer distracted by the way her shirt had gaped a bit at the front.
"You?" he prompted after a moment of silence.
"If I'm doing something for you," she blurted out, "it's fair to ask that you to do something for me, right?"
He stood up and sank into the body of the chair he'd been perching on up until that point. Her voice was serious and her eyes were solemn, intense – but shadowed, somehow, eerily distant. It reminded him of that morning, after brunch, when he'd caught her in that private moment, staring out the window.
Blair Waldorf's words jumped into his mind. She's a little lost right now. His chest tightened the slightest bit and he told Serena softly, "Yes, that's completely fair."
She blinked rapidly, as if she was trying not to cry. "I need to trust you, though. I really need to trust you."
"I gave you my word, didn't I?" He raised his eyebrows, but he kept his tone of voice gentle, reaching out to her.
Serena shook her head a little, standing up and stalking away from the couch, into the suite's kitchenette. Surprised, Carter got to his feet as well and trailed behind her, waiting to see what she would do.
She opened his miniature fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, unscrewing the top and taking a long drink, eyes closed. He took the moment to admire her fully, fluttering eyelashes and glossy pink lips, the way her throat tightened as she swallowed.
"Serena?"
"This is crazy." Her voice sounded a little smaller, and it made something strange, something like protectiveness, stir within him. "I shouldn't trust you. Chuck doesn't, and Blair doesn't, and I can't find anyone who really does, but I –" She stopped short, their eyes locked.
"You what?" Carter asked her slowly, his voice huskier than it had been a moment ago.
"I think I need you," she murmured, and to her credit, her eyes did not leave his. "And it doesn't…make sense."
Carter smiled easily, but his heart was starting to pound. "I believe I admitted the other night that I just might need you, too."
"I don't know you. You don't know me!"
He shrugged. "I like the colour blue," he said casually, offering up a random fact about himself, but his gaze stayed fastened on her blue eyes.
She huffed – rather adorably, if he did say so himself. "That's not what I mean," she complained, "That's not what I mean at all. I just haven't seen any evidence, any kind of clues that tell me I should listen to you and not to Chuck."
"Maybe, Serena, your dear old brother doesn't have your best interests at heart. Maybe his own interests take precedence." He watched her face carefully, trying to figure out what she really saying, attempting to find some sign that she'd ever had thoughts similar to the one he'd just voiced. He couldn't quite read her face and all the emotions she was fighting to keep hidden away, but he could see the soft blooms of pink across her cheekbones, and knew that she was aware that he'd been talking about her eyes, and just not a random colour, when he'd mentioned blue – and that she'd liked it.
Softening his tone by several degrees, he moved closer to her and reached out cautiously to touch her, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. "What are you so afraid of? I know you're not this worried about what Chuck will think."
She looked away from him, clearly conflicted, but just as she had at the bar that night, she didn't give any indication that she wanted him to stop touching her. He was beginning to think she might want the physical contact as badly as he did, but that she was set on making him do the work. It felt like a bit of a challenge, and he was more than happy to accept it.
"I don't know you," Serena reiterated, and he heard the breaks in her voice, the way he was starting to get to her.
"So get to know me, Serena," he told her firmly, as if it were that simple, his eyes focused unrelentingly on her face. "It should be obvious to us both by now that I want to know you."
She swallowed thickly; her shyness rested awkwardly over her features, an expression worn very rarely. "Why?"
Carter didn't know how to tell her that he wanted to know exactly what was causing the shadow in her eyes right now, that he wanted to know her well enough to fix whatever the problem was for her, that he wanted to whisk her away to anywhere and everywhere in the world, wanted to get lost from everyone but her. So he shrugged, allowing himself a small smirk.
"You're beautiful," he offered, unable to keep the slightest bit of awe out of his voice, because there was something indescribable about her that he had never seen in any other woman, something that captured and kept his attention.
Her eyes narrowed despite the compliment, and he understood it, the way she backed away from him a bit and shook her head. He was expecting it, even – it wasn't anything close to the answer she wanted to hear. It was easy to tell, from the way she acted, the way she carried herself, that she didn't think of herself as some pretty girl, and she didn't want anyone to be attracted to her for something she had no control over, something she tried to play down.
Smoothly, he moved close to her again, catching her around the waist, his hands settling on her hips. "But I want to know…" he murmured, "I want to know everything else that you are."
Serena froze in his arms, her fingertips resting lightly on his chest, her eyes wide and flickering over his face. She reached down slowly and batted his hands away from her body, as if his touch had burned her.
"You don't trust me," he said slowly. She shouldn't, she couldn't, and she didn't.
The split-second look she gave him was heart-wrenching, intense enough to steal all the air from the room: she wanted to trust him, she was trying so hard, both wanted to and needed to trust him…but she didn't know how to, not yet. He wondered who had stolen away her ability to rely on someone else. For such a confident, impulsive girl, she just could not commit to this, to him.
She fixed her mask, reined all of her emotions back in, settled her face back into a mask. "I need to find someone," she said calmly, but her words were rushed.
"Alright."
"And it's not…it's not going to be easy. I've been trying to find…this person for a while, and I'm not getting anywhere. I need…I need help. I need PIs – not Bass Inc.'s, not Chuck's. I need to do this in a way that doesn't involve Chuck knowing anything at all. I can't take this to any of my friends, or to my family. They can't know."
Carter nodded slowly. "So you need me."
"Please," she added softly, then tilted her chin up a little and added, "And I'll help you, of course, if you help me."
I'd help you either way. I'd help you no matter what. He cleared his throat. "Sounds fair." He arched an eyebrow. "I guess every decision in your life doesn't go through Chuck, then?"
Relaxing a bit, she rolled her eyes. "No decisions in my life go through Chuck. He just has stalkers on speed-dial that he knows all about my decisions anyway."
"But you don't want him to know about us." She blinked at him and he quickly amended, "I mean, this. Us, helping one another."
She shifted her weight a little. "Well. He'll have to know about…some of it. But not that we're helping each other, no."
Carter laughed lightly, shaking his head. "I think you're going to have to outline the whole plan for me, Serena. I'm feeling a little lost."
Her lips quirked up into a sweet smile. "Story of my life," she murmured, sarcastically and casually, but he took the words and stowed them away for safekeeping: the first real secret she'd ever tell him.
He wanted to touch her so badly.
"But you'll do it?" she asked quietly. "We'll help each other?"
He forced himself to pay attention to what she was saying, not the look of her lips or her legs. "Does this mean you trust me?"
Serena looked startled, and she frowned – her bottom lip poked out in something much closer to a pout. "Why are you so stuck on that?" she shot back at him, trying to deflect the question.
Taking a couple steps closer to her, he chuckled. "Because you clearly don't. Is it really just Chuck's opinion? Does it have something to do with the person you're looking to find?"
She stopped looking at him instantly, her gaze fixed to the right and on the floor. "It has to do with the fact that you're incapable of staying in one place for any longer than it suits you to." She met his eyes again. "I've heard what my grandmother says about you."
"I believe your grandmother also said that I'd risen like a phoenix from the ashes," he reminded her, smirking boastfully. "Which translates to meaning that I have changed."
"You have not," she snapped back, but her eyes were light and bright.
"Well, then, maybe it's about time I did, don't you think?" His gaze fell to her lips again, he couldn't help it. "And who better to change for?"
She pushed at his chest a little, forcing his eyes fly up to lock with hers once again. "Don't sweet-talk me. That's not what this is."
"If you say so."
"Carter."
Holding up his hands in surrender, he tried not to dwell on the way on the way she said his name. "As you wish," he promised her playfully. "No sweet-talk. And I'll stay."
The mirth faded out of her smile, and out of the room, as they stood there for a long moment, just looking at one another.
"Okay," she finally said shakily, when she couldn't take the silence anymore. "We'll…do this."
"Your enthusiasm is overwhelming," he said dryly. "Please, have less confidence in this endeavour. Whatever the hell it is."
Her blue eyes were stormy. "Look," she snapped, "my confidence in us – in this," she quickly corrected herself, "has nothing to do with…anything. Either you agree, and we move ahead, or you don't, and this was a waist of my morning."
Carter tapped his wrist, pointing to an imaginary watch. "It's afternoon," he reminded her.
To his surprise, her eyes flashed and flooded with tears. Shit. "Stop," she said tightly.
"Serena –"
"I'll go," she said angrily, almost like a threat, but she made no move to leave.
He smirked, just the slightest bit. "No, you won't."
"You clearly don't –"
"No," he cut her off. "What is clear here is that you don't trust me. But that's fine. I'm in, Serena. I don't know what you're planning, and I don't know what it's going to cost me, and I don't know what it's going to mean for the two of us together, but I know…that I'm in."
She gave him a look that would've been entirely dubious had her eyes not been filled with hope. "And you're fine with it? Me, not trusting you?" she questioned him mutedly.
"Yes." His answer was decisive. "I am. You don't trust me right now, but you will."
He was frustrating her, he could see it in the way her feet very nearly stomped as she moved to stand closer to him, ready to argue.
"You can't know –"
"I do," he said, calm and collected.
"How?"
"I just…I know, Serena."
"But what makes you so sure?" she demanded heatedly, her voice heavy with something close to desperation, her blue eyes wet and shining.
Carter reached for her before he could stop himself, an arm slipping around her waist with ease. It was impossible to ignore the perfect way she fit against him when their bodies collided; she was still looking at him, breathing shallowly, and he lost all of his resolve to give this, them, time.
He kissed her.
It didn't feel like a first kiss, wasn't tentative and explorative but clashing, hard and passionate, their tongues duelling as her hands gripped at him. She tasted so good, and felt so right, and made this little sound at the back of her throat that had him fighting off thoughts of how very close his bedroom was.
He had no idea what that kiss was if not proof.
"Carter…" She was shaking a little bit when she pulled away from him, breathless and looking at him dazedly. Her back was still pressed up against the counter, her hands still on his back, her eyes half-closed.
He tucked her hair out of her face more tenderly than he ever did anything, his hand slipping beneath her shirt at her hip. "What is it, beautiful?"
Serena looked at him so trustingly, for the first time ever and what he prayed would not be the last, that it took his breath away for a split second, made him eager to do anything for her, to be worthy of the weight of her gaze. Her dark blue eyes clashed with his and her tongue darted out of her mouth, moistening her lips.
"I need you to propose to me," she said.
