( a/n: the second installment of my blood is radioactive! once it's finished i am planning to put it up on AO3 as i do prefer it as a writing platform for my more lengthy pieces. inspiration (not surprisingly!) stems from willow's season six buffy the vampire slayer arc and blair/serena witch graphic aus - key word inspiration )
Her hands crawl up her own throat, black nails against her pale skin; this is who she is, dark and dangerous and mad. It's who she's become, driven by power and revenge and the body of her brother on a hospital bed. It's the image of him lying across that bed, pale and tired, that's driven her to this point. Magic is dangerous, her mother always told her. It's a power you need to harness and control, otherwise it controls you. But Serena has seen The Craft a hundred times, she knows all about the dangers of magic. It's something that was never going to happen to her - not bright, giggly, gold Serena.
But she's fallen powerless to the power. To the darkness that runs through her blood. Her skin is torn and her heart is in shreds and everything is a mess inside of her head, conflicting emotions and images and the surge of power that she feels each time she sends a bolt of lightening Blair's way. Blair—her eyes snap towards her, where she's standing on the corner, eyes cold and lower lip wobbling.
"This isn't you. This can't be you." Blair says, and Serena hears it faintly in the background as she gets up. Brushes the dirt off of her jeans. Looks up at the friend she forged out of a hatred from her family. The girl who's lips taste faintly of strawberries and caramel mocha. Her hair is soft and her laugh is beautiful, not that many people get to hear it the way Serena has—inhibition gone, her voice giggly and loud, eyes crinkling and shining. It's a sight that takes away your breath.
"It is." Serena says firmly, giving one long lingering look at the girl she's sure she's in love with before she turns the opposite way from her and runs away from her. Fast. Her legs taking her away from the only person who could save her. But Serena doesn't wanna be saved and you can't save someone who doesn't want to be.
Serena still remembers the day she first saw Blair, sitting high and mighty on the steps outside of the MET, regal and poised like a school girl pretending to be a Queen; high collar, ruffles and red stockings underneath her plaid school skirt. Her eyes dangerous and deadly, sending daggers in Serena's direction. But there was something about her that drew Serena in, that made her hang around despite the words Blair threw her way, the sneer that seemed to be permanently stitched on her face whenever Serena was around.
It grew tiresome fast, after weeks of Blair hating her, when all Serena wanted to do was grab her hand and drag her to the back of the library and kiss her until her breath went away. Snuggled up under blankets and books and mysterious kingdoms that the two of them could pretend to rule. Serena's not a fool, she knew that it would never happen in a million years. Even if Blair wasn't a Waldorf and she wasn't a van der Woodsen, even if their families don't have knives pushed up against each others throats, singing curses to hurt the other. Blair doesn't hate her because of her last name, she hates her because she's Serena. It's that knowledge that tears up her insides while on the outside she remains the picture of calm and indifference.
It's in a dark and crowded club, music pulsating through the room and Blair on the opposite end. Stiff and poised with a martini in hand. Her boyfriend sitting in a booth. It's in a dark and crowded club that Serena lashes out for the first time, her hips swinging as she makes her way over to Blair's boyfriend. His name a forgotten word in her mind as she pushes her lips against his and her legs on his thighs. It's because it's the closest she can get to Blair, the knowledge that this is a boy who's kissed the girl she can't have. Does Blair kiss like this? She wonders, tongue dipping inside his mouth. Oblivious to the girl watching from the sidelines yet she's the only image playing in her mind, her fingers curling against his shoulders and his girlfriend's name on the edge of her tongue.
Every corner Serena turns there's Blair. It's like this girl is a poison. A poison Serena is all too happy to devour. Things quickly change—hate turning to a battle turning to a sisterhood formed between the two girls who latch onto each other like without the other they'll die. One second with each other isn't enough, one second apart is like a form of dying that neither of them can endure.
We were built to be rivals. It's the last thing she said to her before she turned away, back turned to the only form of salvation she's known. From the sweetest drug she's ever tasted. The purest alcohol her lips have ever touched.
Her legs don't pause, she doesn't stop, until she reaches the hospital. It's busy outside and she knows it's even busier inside; she knows Eric is lying on a bed by himself, her mother fretting at home, getting drunk off of her grandmothers whiskey and forgetting all about the children she's forgotten to raise their whole lives. She's all he has. But she can't go inside and see him again; she can't watch as he sleeps and as he looks at her like she is the cause for his misery, too caught up in herself and other people — Blair — to see that he was hurting. He'll be moved to the Ostroff Centre tomorrow.
Serena sinks further into her despair as she stands outside, paused as she watches ambulances rush in and out. Gathering all the strength she has left she turns away from the hospital, hands shoved in the pocket of her jacket and her hair covering her face as she walks to the nearest bar. Not towards the high-end clubs she frequents, dancing on tables with Blair and drinking mimosas as they wave off guys not worthy of their time, but to the dirty, gritty bars she likes to go to when things are bad, when she can blend into the background and be no-one and nothing; where the boys are men and the women throw punches.
Nobody she knows will be there and if they are they're looking for the same things she is: silence and loneliness and an escape; god, she just wants to be left alone to her own destructive devices, to the magic and the alcohol and the lines of cocaine she used to like to take at night. To the pills and the potions and the loss of friends. To all the things that go bump in the night, to the dangerous lines she likes to cross when she shines just that little less brighter. To the graveyards and the big, black pots of gurgling poisons and the leather-bound spell books she keeps locked up in her room. To the bad spells she practices in secret.
It's cold when she steps inside. Jeans and her leather jacket not warding off the chill. Dark, too. Muscly men in booths that eye her up like she's a slab of meat on a platter to hand to them. Her lips are pulled tight as she passes them, chanting underneath her breath a spell to keep them away from anyone else they could decide to hurt.
Her legs swing her up onto an empty stool at the bar, her hands producing a fake I.D. to the bartender who doesn't ask for her age but eyes her up like he either wants to take her home or kick her out. Her hands curling around the tequila shot in front of her; the last time she did one of these was last week, arms intertwined with Blair, their faces touching as they put their heads back and let the alcohol shoot through their system before getting up to dance. She's not going to be dancing after this one, fingers curl around the glass, pick it up and shoot it back. Demanding another one.
"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" Her eyes shoot over to the boy that's slid into the seat next to her. Her grip loosening on her third shot. He's in a tailored suit—Hugo Boss, if Serena can guess correctly—and he looks familiar, like a faint image that trickles into the back of her mind.
"I'm drinking." Serena replies, her eyes moving to where her glass sits in her hands. Empty. He leans in closer and she catches a whiff of his cologne and she wonders why he has to invade her personal boundaries when all she wants is to be left alone in her empty misery.
"Serena, right?" He says, it's not a question; he's telling her he knows her, as he orders a scotch from the bar. Serena rolls her eyes. Her fingers drumming against the counter top of the bar, there's a spell she could do that could blow this whole bar up. Destroy it from the inside out. If she did a transportation spell she could make it out of there alive.
"Depends." Serena says instead. Mass murder isn't something she wants on her resume just yet.
"On what?" He asks. Leans closer, there's a girl behind him that Serena hadn't noticed until now. Her hair raven black, smirking as she leans in close, as well.
"Who you are." Serena whispers, eyes flitting back and forth between the two of them. He looks back over at the woman, raising an eyebrow and having a silent conversation with her.
"I'm Carter." He says.
"And I'm Georgina." The girl behind him introduces herself.