Fourteen. Serena. Present.
Serena had been drinking for quite a while now, she'd bypassed fluttery, giggly and melancholy, and reached her least attractive stage of drunkenness, she was pissed off. Rufus, who had never known the drunken Serena, didn't know this, Eric, Lily, Nate, Dan, Blair and Chuck were all giving her a wide berth because of the look on her face. Rufus sat down next to her, a big smile on his face.
"Great reception, huh?"
Serena looked at him, she'd been thinking of the weekends she'd spent at the loft with Dan, when they read and talked together.
"You and my mom."
"What about us honey?" He wasn't looking at her, if he had been he could have seen how she was looking at him, she looked like she wanted to kill him.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past."
He looked at her, he would've expected the quote from his son, not Serena, "That's Gatsby isn't it?" he asked, confused.
"That's what I think of you and my mom." She got up and staggered away into the hotel lobby.
She sat down on a sofa in a quiet corner; she'd picked up a vodka tonic from a passing waiter as she came over and gulped it down greedily now. She felt it being lifted quietly from her hands, looking up she saw Dan standing above her, drinking the rest of her vodka. She stood up suddenly and immediately regretted it, she swayed and almost fell. Irritatingly Dan held her up. The minute she trusted herself to remain standing without his help she shook his hands off.
"What are you doing here?" The alcohol had hit her hard in the last few minutes she could hear herself slurring, but she honestly didn't care.
He didn't answer at first, but merely considered her carefully. "I don't know really."
She hit him on his shoulder; it was hard for her to hit him with any real force because he was standing so close. She kept hitting him about the head and neck and shoulders. He didn't try to protect himself from her drunken blows, but closed his eyes. She found that her face was wet and that she was crying as she hit him, she felt herself being pulled close to him, she tried to fight him off weakly but ended up sobbing on his shoulder leaving a trail of tears and mascara and mucus on the shoulder of his white shirt. He kissed her forehead and the gesture reminded her of the morning when she had told him about that night with Georgina and Pete. It only made her cry harder and clutch at him desperately. They stood like that for a while until she felt herself dropping off to sleep. She had the vague feeling of being picked up and carried like she had been at the Debutante Ball and the rush of cooler air over her bare shoulders and legs, followed by the staleness of a cab.
Then. Nothing.