Serena went home early. Not her usual version of early, which was anytime before two a.m., but early as in before dinner time.
Her vague plan to drink until she forgot her own name had seemed distant and slightly unproductive from the serene park. So two martinis in (for courage, and because she was in mourning, and just because) she decided to head home.
Although things in her head still didn't make sense, she now had an almost foolproof plan: be better. She was going to be a better sister, a better daughter, and a better friend.
Blair was her top priority. She was already dreading the brunette's anger, but she knew that if she made it through the storm, somehow she'd work out a way to make Blair forgive her.
She'd also created a mental list of people not to sleep with. It included stepfathers, stepbrothers, friend's fathers, best friend's boyfriends, and married politicians. Technically that last one had never come up, but it was still a pretty solid rule.
The list really would have been useful, oh say three, four years ago.
After a quick knock and before any possible reply, she barged into her brother's room. Eric lay on his bed, hands behind his head and ankles crossed. He was staring so intently at his ceiling that she couldn't resist looking.
His ceiling was a myriad of colours: dark inky swirls, hints of an ocean here and there, bright patches of paint that didn't seem to follow any discernable pattern.
Eric sat up, pulling his knees up so he could wrap his hands around them loosely.
"Oh wow, you do that?" Serena asked, throwing herself onto the bed so she could stare up at it more easily.
The bed bounced a little, dipping under her weight. Eric slid towards her unintentionally, til his hip was pressed into her shoulder. "Uh huh, it was my psychiatrist's idea. Well, the painting. He didn't specify the ceiling bit," he confirmed, studying her calmly.
He looked paler than she remembered.
"I like," she declared with an easy grin. She reached up with a long arm to push his hair away from his forehead. "You need a haircut," she informed him absently. She hadn't been the best sister lately, or ever really, but she was determined to try harder—to make it impossible for Eric to sink into his own lonely world.
"I didn't expect you to be home tonight," he told her experimentally.
"You want the house cleared? Hot date or something?" she asked only half joking.
Eric cleared his throat, eyebrows pulling together in mild confusion. "Have you had your phone on you? Been online? Talked to a human recently?"
"Cells flat, don't remember where I put my laptop, and I've only talked to Basses today, so that would be a negative on human." She'd finally noticed that her brother was watching her a little too closely. She pulled a face—nose scrunching, eyes looking pointedly to the side. "Gossip Girl?" she asked with a slight pause. "Me...Chuck?"
Eric nodded solemnly. "Oh yeah," he breathed.
"How bad?" she groaned.
"The ones of you making out on the hood of the limo? Those could sell for money. A lot of it. And I'm pretty sure your argument this morning just went platinum." He looked almost bewildered. "The UES has gone crazy. I think Gossip Girl actually posted a photo of you with a duck and your empty martini glass."
She didn't really care about that. She was only scared about one girl on the UES seeing those photos.
She wanted to ask if Eric was okay, but she knew how much he hated that. She squinted up at him. "What do you think?" she asked quietly.
He was focusing on the ceiling again. "I think you could do worse than Chuck." They both seemed to think on that for a second. He gave her a sidelong glance. "You know...like Bart."
She pulled a pillow over her head. Eric made out a barely discernable "how? "
He shook his head, almost in amusement. "You're not half as inconspicuous as you think you are sis."
She threw the pillow to the floor. "Sorry, E."
Eric didn't have to ask why she was saying sorry to him. He knew that as screwed up as things got, she always covered his ears and eyes, trying to hide their too screwed up world from him. And now she was the one making things more confusing. "It's okay," he forgave easily and without a second thought.
"Well everything is back to normal, okay?" she said firmly. "Me and Chuck are back to our usual angry banter and Bart thinks Brown would be a good idea."
He tried to read the subtext. He was well versed in seeing through her whitewashed version of events. "Are you going to let him send you away?"
She shrugged. "If I go, it will be on my terms, though I haven't exactly worked out how to make that clear to him. And it will just be for college; I won't be banished." She nudged his hip with her shoulder. "Besides, If I left, who would be your role model?" she exclaimed, fluttering her eyelashes prettily.
Eric gave her a small smile, before looking around his room thoughtfully. "Well," he said, drawing the word out, "I do have an excellent lamp. It may not have your talent for accessorising, but I think it outperforms you in the whole moral compass department."
She managed to poke her tongue out at him even through giggles.
XOXOXOXO
Blair leaned down to press unhurried kisses against Nathaniel's mouth. Impatiently he tried to arch upwards, to deepen the kiss, capture the taste of her and never let her go. Her sharp fingernails traced over his bare chest teasingly, her thighs tightening around his denim clad hips.
Baby are you down, down, down, down, down?
They both ignored the short message tone on Blair's phone. Nathaniel's hands slid around her ass and he struggled not to grind against her. His eyes were already glazed as he took in the perfection before him. He couldn't believe that he got to touch it, feel her skin against his.
Her hands cupped his face as she finally kissed him deep and constant. His hands clung to her tightly, as if to stop her from escaping.
Baby are you down, down, down, down, down?
Blair sat up quickly, a flash of displeasure crossing her face. She grabbed her phone from the bedside table.
"Ignore it, B" Nathaniel pleaded.
She saw that she had about five Gossip Girl updates. "What could be so important?" she trailed off while reading through her messages. At first it looked like the blogger had gone mad.
Serena. Chuck. Serena. Serena and Chuck—
Blair immediately swung her leg from around Nathaniel's body. Her eyes were still reading through the messages as she stood from the bed, one hand already reaching up to fix her hair.
"Where are you going?" Nathaniel watched her gather her stuff.
"I need to see Serena." Blair was proud that her voice came out flat.
"Something wrong?" Nate asked in concern. She glanced at him in suspiciously, automatically trying to gauge how deep that concern ran. "Need me to come?" he offered, thinking Blair might need help carrying the blonde out of a bar or something.
"No!" She shouted, before fixing a reassuring smile on her lips. "Fashion emergency," she added, sure he wouldn't ask her to elaborate on that. "Where's your phone?"
"In my coat by the door." He was too bewildered to think much on it. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked, thinking about his current uncomfortable state of arousal.
Blair kissed away the small frown lines marring his almost too-perfect features. "You're a big boy, I'm sure you can handle it on your own." Blair flounced out of the room, ignoring the way Nathaniel turned into the mattress, stifling a groan into his pillow.
Before she left, she fished Nathaniel's phone out of his coat pocket, deleting his recent messages. He'd find out soon enough anyway, but when he did she wanted the dust to have settled. His attention couldn't stray from her for any longer than necessary.
She marched out of The Palace elevator and into the Bass suite. She was mildly surprised that Bart had been the one to let her in. She examined the blooming bruise across his jaw with a small smile. "Ouch, you look awful." She forced her eyes to widen in concern. "Crossing guard catch you trolling on school grounds?" she asked sympathetically.
Bart gave a slow blink, unimpressed by the gibe. But he was a Bass and Blair had expected nothing less. "Serena's in Eric's room." He walked away without further comment, feeling Blair's acerbic gaze follow his movements.
Blair found Serena and Eric in the younger boy's bed. Serena's arms were stretched out. She was making a square with her forefingers and thumbs, squinting through it with one eye while her brother looked on with infinite patience.
As if sensing her presence, Serena sprung up. The blonds looked almost comically surprised. Eric turned to her, but before he could say anything his sister wrapped her arm around his head, hand covering his mouth. Blair tilted her head in irritation, but Eric smiled as his sister rolled off the bed in a stealthy movement, crawling across the floor till she reached the wall beside the door. Serena reached up, switching the light off. The room was drowned in darkness, hiding Serena from Blair's sight. She heard a noise and imagined it was Serena sitting up against the wall.
Blair let out an exasperated sound when she switched the light on only to have Serena flick it off immediately. "Does that ever actually work?" she asked, turning the light on and grabbing Serena's sneaking hand before it could touch the switch again.
"There's a first time for everything," Serena replied, but her eyes didn't match the mirth in her voice.
Blair stared coldly down at the girl who she'd just seen dry humping her ex on a car. "I'm not going anywhere," she announced unnecessarily.
Eric stood, uncomfortable watching the intensity shared between the girls in front of him. "I'm going to find something to eat." He paused when he was between them. "I'll dial nine-one and finish it off if I hear screams," he stage whispered to Serena before leaving.
Blair sat across from Serena, leaning back against the end of Eric's bed. Usually she'd sit beside her, close enough that they'd touch from shoulder to hip. But not today.
"Why, S?" Her voice didn't even shake.
Serena's head dipped, eyes falling to her lap. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She was so sick of those words. She never wanted to hear them again—never wanted to have to hear them.
Blair drummed her fingers along the carpet in frustration. She'd come here with all sorts of nasty accusations running through her mind. Just looking at Serena sent a pang of unhappiness and mistrust through her body. Why did her opposition always have to be Serena? Why was her best friend born to intimidate other girls without even trying?
"Not good enough. Why him?" The one boy who chose me first.
"Because he was my friend too once. And I needed a friend." Serena said the words without inflection, plucking the end of her purple dress.
Blair scowled at that. She was her friend, why would Serena need someone else? But the question was an answer in itself.
Serena needed a lot of things.
Like maybe some common sense.
"Friend? Where's my night in Trampsville?" The words lacked the malice they should have had, because there was no satisfaction in bringing Serena down when she was already low, especially when Blair had been feeling almost high—precariously close to being in a happy relationship.
Serena let out a tiny snicker. "You must be at least this tall to ride this ride," she pronounced, hand raised to her forehead.
Blair slumped down, unable to hold onto the hostility keeping her straight and firm. "What happened?"
Even the small smile on Serena's face disappeared. "Well, I'm glad you asked. See, when a man and a woman consume more alcohol than—" She stopped when she noticed Blair's glare. "We were drunk. It was a one night stand."
Blair could hear the confusion in Serena's voice. "And the argument?"
"He found out about...Bart." Their eyes met and Blair was reminded that Serena's conscience usually reared its head far too late and was all the more vicious for its tardiness.
Blair's eyes narrowed at the untruth, trying to figure out what sort of game Chuck was playing. She decided to keep the knowledge that Chuck had already known to herself, instead answering Serena's unspoken question without a prompt. "I didn't tell him."
Serena nodded absently, never having been concerned about that in the first place. She shifted until she sat by Blair's side, tentatively laying her head on the other girl's shoulder. A fierce I fucking love you flashed through her mind, along with and next time I'll remember that.
Blair wrapped her hand around Serena's; it always felt unnatural to be in the same room and not touching. "What do you want, S? With Bart, with Chuck?" Blair shut her eyes, pained that she was even considering that.
Serena stiffened in surprise, because that wasn't something she thought about anymore. "I don't know," she answered honestly. "I want things with Bart to be...less hard. And I want to be Chuck's friend again."
"Just his friend?" She watched Serena closely, not letting anything go unnoticed.
"He hates me Blair."
Blair scoffed, not missing the way that Serena didn't answer her question. "Is that what that was?"
"I believe he referred to me as a 'Bass whore'," Serena said with a slightly bitter laugh. She tightened her hand around Blair's. "He loves you, B."
Blair couldn't help the way her heart cheered. But it soon sunk away, because love wasn't enough to make them work.
"And Nathaniel loves you," she replied blandly.
Serena's eyes widened in shock. "No! B—"
"Yes," she whispered viciously. And there are some things that are so true that once they're said you can't laugh them off, you can never take them back.
And she didn't even need to. Because love wasn't enough to make them work either. Because Nate would always dream for things that couldn't be and Serena would always wander in search of them, and really, only one person in a relationship could be that unfocused.
Blair let out a small sigh. "But he loves me too, so it's okay." For years they'd shared Nathaniel between them and it had never been easy, but they survived. And if it ever came down to it they could survive another ten Nathaniels.
And Chuck.
Blair let Serena whisper words of reassurance, knowing she'd need every ounce of confidence for her next tête-à-tête.
E/N: Yes. It is impossible for me to write a fic without gratuitous Waldsen moments.