Gossip Girl fic: This is not a love story [2/?]
Title: This is not a love story
Author: acidpop25
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Chuck/Nate, references to Nate/Blair, Nate/Vanessa, and Chuck/Blair
Summary: This is not a love story, and it's especially not a love story about Chuck Bass.
A/N: AU after the season one finale. Some of this loosely adapted from RP with blossomslut.
Nate Archibald’s life has always felt like a movie, scripted and rehearsed, and even the problems are nothing more than token obstacles, beautifully staged. Glossy Hollywood in New York; sometimes Nate suspects he is the token heartthrob of the piece, the one who spends a lot of time in sensitive scenes with sappy music to reel in the teen demographic.
Set the scene for something different: this is not a chick flick. This one is an indie, and maybe it doesn’t have a happy ending (but maybe it does). Roll the film on a coming-of-age (coming-out) story, on something grittier and more interesting, on a boy in the bathroom cutting precalculus before lunch. Enter trouble, stage right.
“Nathaniel, Nathaniel. Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“Shouldn’t you?”
Chuck smiles, sharp-edged. “I’m the bad one, remember? You’re the good boy.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Nate mutters, and Chuck slinks closer (and closer) until Nate is pressed between cold wall and warm body (he only pays any heed to the second one).
“Here?” His voice rises a little in pitch, disbelieving. “Chuck, we can’t, anyone could walk in-”
“They have class,” Chuck interrupts, hands grasping at Nate’s hips.
“So do we, and we’re both here.”
“Stop talking,” Chuck commands, and then it’s impossible for Nate to disobey because Chuck’s lips are on his, insistent and immediate, and he’s tugging Nate’s belt loose (Chuck always did get right to the point) and generally doing a really, really good job of keeping Nate from being capable of coherent thought. Nate’s nerves are on fire with the edgy fear somewhere in the back of his mind that they could be caught, and with, oh, that thing Chuck’s doing with his fingers, and fuck it all, Chuck is clearly a genius, because there’s absolutely nothing Nate would rather be doing right now than this.
Re-evaluation: Chuck Bass is a reckless bastard (Nathaniel Archibald is just easy). All across the courtyard and down the halls, cell phones ring with the latest dirt:
It may be fall, Upper East Siders, but things were heating up in the boys’ room at St. Jude's this morning. Looks like last year’s scuffle over Queen B is long forgotten, and our two favorite boys have kissed and made up- or should I say made out?
But don't take my word for it- a picture, after all, is worth a thousand. Who knew our golden boy swings for both teams? Give me all the deets.
xoxo,
Gossip Girl
In other circumstances, the picture might have made Nate squirm and slip off with a pointed text to Chuck. Instead it makes him go pale, and all he can hear are the gasps and shock and whispers and laughs and petty, ugly jeers (all around him, all around him, everywhere). He’s alone in the crowded courtyard, all the other students leaving a wide swath of space between him and them, and if no one flinches back from Chuck as he descends the stairs it’s only because there’s no debauchery that could ever come as a shock where he’s concerned. He looks perfectly casual, but he heads directly for Nate.
“Hey,” Chuck says, but as he draws closer Nate draws back, and that warm, wicked voice is too much for Nate to deal with right now.
“I can’t,” Nate says, and walks away, leaves Chuck standing there and a quickly approaching Serena looking torn over which of them to go after, decision only made when Chuck snarls at her to go find Humphrey and leave him alone (this losing his best friend thing is getting really old, as far as Chuck’s concerned). Serena looks like she’s about to argue before she thinks better of it, and she leaves Chuck to stalk off to his limo and Nate to- whatever.
Whatever happens to be going home only long enough to change and grab his mp3 player, because right now Nate can’t stay in the house where someone might look for him, can’t be around people, can’t flip open his laptop and look at the mess Gossip Girl has spawned. No. Instead he puts in his headphones, drowns out the world and just runs. Just runs and runs and runs, as if he could run away from all his problems, run away from everything and everyone, run away from his parents and his classmates and all the hurt and fear and pain, just run and leave it all behind. (He can’t). The pounding of his feet on the pavement is steady and fast (he has so much to run from), and the burn of exertion in his muscles and lungs is a welcome one, a familiar pain. A pain he understands, and pain that makes sense to him, a pain he can deal with. He doesn’t turn back until he feels like keeling over, returns home unwilling and exhausted.
His mother is waiting. Nate sits, still and silent in the face of her fury, her shame, her disappointment, no holds barred and no quarter given, and what do you have to say for yourself?
“Nothing.” (He has nothing to say, no way to chase the disappointment and the fear from his mother’s eyes, the resentment and the shame from the tight-lipped line of her mouth). “I don’t have to justify myself to you,” Nate tells her, because it sounds better than I don’t have the words, and he locks himself in his bedroom for the rest of the night.
Open scene on a boy as far to the back of the class as he can get, hoping not to feel the weight of stares boring into his back (especially alone, especially with Chuck still slighted and keeping his distance and leaving Nate to fight his own fight for once in his life). The soundtrack is all whispers.
He makes his escape after Chemistry (no one tries to stop him). Cut and run, cut and run like always- he feels like a coward (and maybe he is). He flips open his cell phone as he goes, calls the only person left he can think of to call- it goes to voicemail twice before Vanessa picks up.
“Nate. Hey.”
“Hey.” Something’s not right, he knows it immediately- something in her voice sounds defeated and unhappy. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she answers, a little too forcefully. “What about you? I’m not the one in a social tsunami.”
Nate almost says fine because he’s pretty sure she’s deflecting, trying to distract him from whatever’s wrong with her by putting the attention on his own sore spot (it’s a strategy that works, one Blair had used for years and years). “Actually,” he tells her instead, “pretty awful, frankly.” A pause. “I was hoping maybe you had some time on your hands.”
“I’m afraid I don’t. The gallery’s taking a lot of my time, I can’t just skip out.”
“I could meet you there,” Nate offers. “I don’t mind making the trip.”
There’s a pause. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“Well. Technically.”
“You’re hiding,” she accuses. “Did you even go today?”
“For a while.”
“...Oh.”
“Yeah.” Nate scuffs his foot as he walks, sends a stone lying on the sidewalk skittering into the narrow strip of grass alongside it. For a long moment, both of them are silent, the only sounds those of their breathing and the busy New York streets.
“You’re mad at me,” Nate finally says. “I thought... I thought we were good.”
Vanessa heaves an unhappy sigh into the phone. “We were. Are. I’m just... I’m just being stupid, I. It was just so much easier when I didn’t know it was him, you know? When I hadn’t seen that stupid picture.”
Nate winces a bit. “I’m-”
“Don’t,” she interrupts, “don’t apologize. I’m just... it’s my issue, I’ll be okay. In a little while. It’s not your fault.”
“Kind of is,” Nate says. “And I am sorry, I’m sorry I hurt you. I don’t like hurting people, but... I seem to do an awful lot of it.”
“You know why? It’s because you don’t know what you want. You just... you bounce between things hoping you’ll stumble on the answer, and you mean well, but sometimes you bounce off of people a little too hard.”
Nate swallows. “I should let you get back to work,” he says quietly. “Call me later sometime, okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I will. And Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“Go to school tomorrow. Seriously. You’ll be okay. Promise.”
“Bye, Vanessa.”
Nate hangs up the phone and spends his afternoon alone in a rushing, indifferent city, the last of the summer warmth fading on his skin. He doesn’t really believe Vanessa, doesn’t think the next day will go any better even if he stays.
He’s right.
Enter the antagonist protagonist from stage left, the beautiful brown-eyed should-have-been leading lady, scripted and lovely with every pleat perfectly in place. She wanted a love story and he doesn’t blame her for that; she wanted a perfect happy ending and he thinks she’s naïve. No swelling violins. But the camera loves you, baby, and you know all your lines. This is your goddamn tragedy. You aren’t the star.
She stops him at the end of the school day with a hand on his arm, swift and unused to disobedience. Nate stops, murmurs, “hey,” and waits for her move, and Blair meets his gaze steadily then lets go of his arm. “Let me buy you a coffee, Archibald,” she says, and Nate agrees because he knows he can’t do anything else. He lets her lead him someplace off the main thoroughfare, someplace where they’re less likely to be interrupted or speculated on. He is quiet, waiting; the ball is in her court, it’s her move- what does it say about her, that every figure of speech between them is one of competition? Blair lives her life like she’s fighting a war.
“Your coffee preference hasn’t changed, has it?”
“I- no. No, it hasn’t,” he says. Doesn’t answer the hint of accusation in her voice. “Same as ever.”
The smile Blair puts on doesn’t reach her eyes. “Just coffee, Nate,” she tells him, doubtless catching the apprehension in his tone. She breezes past him to a table, and Nate sits down opposite her like he’s awaiting judgment (he is).
“Right,” he murmurs, but it sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than agree with her. He’s on edge, posture neater than usual, and to someone who knows him as well as Blair does, it’s painfully obvious that Nate is scared (as if there is anything she could do to him that’s worse than what Nate does to himself). She folds her hands neatly in her lap.
“Trust the voice of experience,” Blair finally says, “all scandals have to end eventually.”
“Not that reassuring, amazingly enough,” Nate answers. “You should have heard my mom- actually I’m surprised you didn’t. I’m surprised the whole city didn’t.” Nate finally looks up at her, mouth slanting into a wry, unhappy line.
“Not to underestimate your mom’s ability to be a bitch- sorry-” (the apology is an afterthought, and doesn’t sound particularly sincere) “-but you might be overdramatizing. I can think of at least four different stories I heard today that top yours. So my point is, drink your coffee.”
“This just really isn’t what I need right now,” Nate says, curling his hands around his coffee cup. “Or, you know, ever.”
“Because you’re always so good about making your needs known,” Blair retorts, and Nate’s jaw clenches slightly.
“Go on,” he says after a moment, “just get it all out of your system, all right? I’m sure you’ve got plenty to say.” Just like everyone.
“You’re right,” she says after a moment, pursing her lips briefly. “I have a lot to say.” Her tone takes on a saccharine edge. “But getting it all out in one go? Way too easy on you, Nate, not my style.” (Too easy on him, and too hard for her. Exacting revenge on Nate was never half as easy or as satisfying as it was with anyone else).
“You’re going to have to start somewhere,” he points out; the statement sounds a little sharper than he really meant it to, and he grimaces slightly at the tone. “Look,” Nate says, softer, “I’m sorry you had to find out like this. I... I should probably have told you a while ago, I just... didn’t know how.”
“You’re going to have to start somewhere,” she throws back at him, and crosses her arms over her chest. “I always find out like this. First my best friend, then your best friend... You must be done now, right? Or are you going to go after Humphrey’s best friend, what was her name... Vanessa?” Blair gives him an artificial smile. “Oh, right. Never mind. You’ve done that, too.”
“It’s not like it's something you just drop in conversation,” Nate retorts, voice rising a bit. “What was I supposed to say, ‘Oh Blair, by the way, I’m screwing Chuck, how’d you do on the math test?’ Besides, we both remember how well it worked the last time I tried being honest with you, and outing myself to anyone is not high on my list of fun ways to spend my time.”
“You've never been honest with me, Nate," she says, leaning forward in her chair. “Do you get that? Never. I guess it’s good we got out of that while we were ahead, but I was in it, okay? I was- stupid.” She sits back, rolling her eyes at the ceiling. “You keep making that clearer and clearer.”
(This isn't what she came here for. She isn't sure, exactly, what she came here for, but some part of her needs this, some part of her can't let it go. It's obnoxious, this very loud part of her that keeps demanding what about me? and keeps bringing certain events to the forefront of her mind. She wants to shut it up, this annoying, piping voice, the little girl who's always griping about something, anything, just to be heard. Get it together, Waldorf. This obviously has nothing to do with you.
Only it doesn't feel that way.)
“Blair,” Nate says, a little helplessly, and sets his coffee cup aside to prop his elbows on the table, hide his face in his hands for a long moment. He draws in a slow breath and lets it out just as slowly before he looks up again. “What exactly are you angry with me for? We’ve been split up for almost a year, we- look, Blair, I... I care about you. I always did. I don’t think we were right for each other, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t important to me. It... it matters to me what you think, it matters because you matter.” He sounds nervous, uncomfortable, but also almost painfully sincere, the kind of wrenching earnestness that he gets sometimes, when he is lost and laid bare.
“If you’re upset at me because I didn’t tell you, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t. If you’re upset because you don’t want me to have anything with anyone else, I don’t owe you an apology. And if you’re upset because you still want Chuck, then just tell him that. God knows it’s what he wants to hear.”
For long, long moments, Blair is silent, looking at him. Nate's shoulders are hunched, guilt and misery and the weight of a million different things dragging down on him. Of course. What else would she have expected? (But she feels guilty, she feels cruel, she feels like she wants to pretend everything is perfect for him the way she used to; she always wanted so badly for Nate to believe it.)
“Okay,” she finally says, bringing her hands up to cradle her coffee cup without lifting it. “So you’re out. Congratulations. So. Are you going to hide until it blows over, or milk the scandal for all it’s worth? Before you answer, the first option never works.”
“I don’t want to milk it for anything,” Nate answers dully, pausing to take a long drink of his coffee now that it has cooled a bit, “but it's not like I can hide. I mean, the entire school knows. It’s not as if I could cut class long enough for them to forget I had- to forget about this.”
God, he can’t even say it, not when he’s being serious. He can’t look her in the eye and say I had sex with Chuck. Blair belongs to that world of perfection, perfect lives and perfect plans; she is part of the perfect future that Nate has spent his whole life being told all about by all the adults around him, a future that has no room for a boy who has sex with another boy, even one as filthy rich as Chuck Bass.
“You could charter a private jet. Head off somewhere. Settle the missed school time with a generous donation,” she offers off-handedly, watching him. “Do you want them to forget?”
Nate hesitates for a long, long moment. “Yes,” he finally admits, but he sounds ashamed to say it. “I’m not exactly okay with this myself, yet. I’ve kind of spent a long time not wanting to be... not straight.” The admission is halting; it’s hard enough for Nate to sort through the mess of thoughts and feelings and secrets and reasons in his own mind, without having to try and articulate them for another person.
Blair looks like she’s about to press for more answers, start asking things like how long? or why didn’t you tell me? Things Nate doesn’t want to ever have to tell her. She doesn’t, though, just pats his arm and gets to her feet. “Buck up,” she tells him, “You’ll be fine. I just remembered, I have a few calls to make. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
“Hey.” Nate catches her wrist before she moves away and looks up at her. “Listen, I... thanks. Just... thanks, Blair.”
A soft, real smile tugs at the corners of her lips. “You, too, Archibald.”
Previous | Next
Author: acidpop25
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Chuck/Nate, references to Nate/Blair, Nate/Vanessa, and Chuck/Blair
Summary: This is not a love story, and it's especially not a love story about Chuck Bass.
A/N: AU after the season one finale. Some of this loosely adapted from RP with blossomslut.
Nate Archibald’s life has always felt like a movie, scripted and rehearsed, and even the problems are nothing more than token obstacles, beautifully staged. Glossy Hollywood in New York; sometimes Nate suspects he is the token heartthrob of the piece, the one who spends a lot of time in sensitive scenes with sappy music to reel in the teen demographic.
Set the scene for something different: this is not a chick flick. This one is an indie, and maybe it doesn’t have a happy ending (but maybe it does). Roll the film on a coming-of-age (coming-out) story, on something grittier and more interesting, on a boy in the bathroom cutting precalculus before lunch. Enter trouble, stage right.
“Nathaniel, Nathaniel. Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“Shouldn’t you?”
Chuck smiles, sharp-edged. “I’m the bad one, remember? You’re the good boy.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Nate mutters, and Chuck slinks closer (and closer) until Nate is pressed between cold wall and warm body (he only pays any heed to the second one).
“Here?” His voice rises a little in pitch, disbelieving. “Chuck, we can’t, anyone could walk in-”
“They have class,” Chuck interrupts, hands grasping at Nate’s hips.
“So do we, and we’re both here.”
“Stop talking,” Chuck commands, and then it’s impossible for Nate to disobey because Chuck’s lips are on his, insistent and immediate, and he’s tugging Nate’s belt loose (Chuck always did get right to the point) and generally doing a really, really good job of keeping Nate from being capable of coherent thought. Nate’s nerves are on fire with the edgy fear somewhere in the back of his mind that they could be caught, and with, oh, that thing Chuck’s doing with his fingers, and fuck it all, Chuck is clearly a genius, because there’s absolutely nothing Nate would rather be doing right now than this.
Re-evaluation: Chuck Bass is a reckless bastard (Nathaniel Archibald is just easy). All across the courtyard and down the halls, cell phones ring with the latest dirt:
It may be fall, Upper East Siders, but things were heating up in the boys’ room at St. Jude's this morning. Looks like last year’s scuffle over Queen B is long forgotten, and our two favorite boys have kissed and made up- or should I say made out?
But don't take my word for it- a picture, after all, is worth a thousand. Who knew our golden boy swings for both teams? Give me all the deets.
xoxo,
Gossip Girl
In other circumstances, the picture might have made Nate squirm and slip off with a pointed text to Chuck. Instead it makes him go pale, and all he can hear are the gasps and shock and whispers and laughs and petty, ugly jeers (all around him, all around him, everywhere). He’s alone in the crowded courtyard, all the other students leaving a wide swath of space between him and them, and if no one flinches back from Chuck as he descends the stairs it’s only because there’s no debauchery that could ever come as a shock where he’s concerned. He looks perfectly casual, but he heads directly for Nate.
“Hey,” Chuck says, but as he draws closer Nate draws back, and that warm, wicked voice is too much for Nate to deal with right now.
“I can’t,” Nate says, and walks away, leaves Chuck standing there and a quickly approaching Serena looking torn over which of them to go after, decision only made when Chuck snarls at her to go find Humphrey and leave him alone (this losing his best friend thing is getting really old, as far as Chuck’s concerned). Serena looks like she’s about to argue before she thinks better of it, and she leaves Chuck to stalk off to his limo and Nate to- whatever.
Whatever happens to be going home only long enough to change and grab his mp3 player, because right now Nate can’t stay in the house where someone might look for him, can’t be around people, can’t flip open his laptop and look at the mess Gossip Girl has spawned. No. Instead he puts in his headphones, drowns out the world and just runs. Just runs and runs and runs, as if he could run away from all his problems, run away from everything and everyone, run away from his parents and his classmates and all the hurt and fear and pain, just run and leave it all behind. (He can’t). The pounding of his feet on the pavement is steady and fast (he has so much to run from), and the burn of exertion in his muscles and lungs is a welcome one, a familiar pain. A pain he understands, and pain that makes sense to him, a pain he can deal with. He doesn’t turn back until he feels like keeling over, returns home unwilling and exhausted.
His mother is waiting. Nate sits, still and silent in the face of her fury, her shame, her disappointment, no holds barred and no quarter given, and what do you have to say for yourself?
“Nothing.” (He has nothing to say, no way to chase the disappointment and the fear from his mother’s eyes, the resentment and the shame from the tight-lipped line of her mouth). “I don’t have to justify myself to you,” Nate tells her, because it sounds better than I don’t have the words, and he locks himself in his bedroom for the rest of the night.
Open scene on a boy as far to the back of the class as he can get, hoping not to feel the weight of stares boring into his back (especially alone, especially with Chuck still slighted and keeping his distance and leaving Nate to fight his own fight for once in his life). The soundtrack is all whispers.
He makes his escape after Chemistry (no one tries to stop him). Cut and run, cut and run like always- he feels like a coward (and maybe he is). He flips open his cell phone as he goes, calls the only person left he can think of to call- it goes to voicemail twice before Vanessa picks up.
“Nate. Hey.”
“Hey.” Something’s not right, he knows it immediately- something in her voice sounds defeated and unhappy. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she answers, a little too forcefully. “What about you? I’m not the one in a social tsunami.”
Nate almost says fine because he’s pretty sure she’s deflecting, trying to distract him from whatever’s wrong with her by putting the attention on his own sore spot (it’s a strategy that works, one Blair had used for years and years). “Actually,” he tells her instead, “pretty awful, frankly.” A pause. “I was hoping maybe you had some time on your hands.”
“I’m afraid I don’t. The gallery’s taking a lot of my time, I can’t just skip out.”
“I could meet you there,” Nate offers. “I don’t mind making the trip.”
There’s a pause. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“Well. Technically.”
“You’re hiding,” she accuses. “Did you even go today?”
“For a while.”
“...Oh.”
“Yeah.” Nate scuffs his foot as he walks, sends a stone lying on the sidewalk skittering into the narrow strip of grass alongside it. For a long moment, both of them are silent, the only sounds those of their breathing and the busy New York streets.
“You’re mad at me,” Nate finally says. “I thought... I thought we were good.”
Vanessa heaves an unhappy sigh into the phone. “We were. Are. I’m just... I’m just being stupid, I. It was just so much easier when I didn’t know it was him, you know? When I hadn’t seen that stupid picture.”
Nate winces a bit. “I’m-”
“Don’t,” she interrupts, “don’t apologize. I’m just... it’s my issue, I’ll be okay. In a little while. It’s not your fault.”
“Kind of is,” Nate says. “And I am sorry, I’m sorry I hurt you. I don’t like hurting people, but... I seem to do an awful lot of it.”
“You know why? It’s because you don’t know what you want. You just... you bounce between things hoping you’ll stumble on the answer, and you mean well, but sometimes you bounce off of people a little too hard.”
Nate swallows. “I should let you get back to work,” he says quietly. “Call me later sometime, okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I will. And Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“Go to school tomorrow. Seriously. You’ll be okay. Promise.”
“Bye, Vanessa.”
Nate hangs up the phone and spends his afternoon alone in a rushing, indifferent city, the last of the summer warmth fading on his skin. He doesn’t really believe Vanessa, doesn’t think the next day will go any better even if he stays.
He’s right.
Enter the antagonist protagonist from stage left, the beautiful brown-eyed should-have-been leading lady, scripted and lovely with every pleat perfectly in place. She wanted a love story and he doesn’t blame her for that; she wanted a perfect happy ending and he thinks she’s naïve. No swelling violins. But the camera loves you, baby, and you know all your lines. This is your goddamn tragedy. You aren’t the star.
She stops him at the end of the school day with a hand on his arm, swift and unused to disobedience. Nate stops, murmurs, “hey,” and waits for her move, and Blair meets his gaze steadily then lets go of his arm. “Let me buy you a coffee, Archibald,” she says, and Nate agrees because he knows he can’t do anything else. He lets her lead him someplace off the main thoroughfare, someplace where they’re less likely to be interrupted or speculated on. He is quiet, waiting; the ball is in her court, it’s her move- what does it say about her, that every figure of speech between them is one of competition? Blair lives her life like she’s fighting a war.
“Your coffee preference hasn’t changed, has it?”
“I- no. No, it hasn’t,” he says. Doesn’t answer the hint of accusation in her voice. “Same as ever.”
The smile Blair puts on doesn’t reach her eyes. “Just coffee, Nate,” she tells him, doubtless catching the apprehension in his tone. She breezes past him to a table, and Nate sits down opposite her like he’s awaiting judgment (he is).
“Right,” he murmurs, but it sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than agree with her. He’s on edge, posture neater than usual, and to someone who knows him as well as Blair does, it’s painfully obvious that Nate is scared (as if there is anything she could do to him that’s worse than what Nate does to himself). She folds her hands neatly in her lap.
“Trust the voice of experience,” Blair finally says, “all scandals have to end eventually.”
“Not that reassuring, amazingly enough,” Nate answers. “You should have heard my mom- actually I’m surprised you didn’t. I’m surprised the whole city didn’t.” Nate finally looks up at her, mouth slanting into a wry, unhappy line.
“Not to underestimate your mom’s ability to be a bitch- sorry-” (the apology is an afterthought, and doesn’t sound particularly sincere) “-but you might be overdramatizing. I can think of at least four different stories I heard today that top yours. So my point is, drink your coffee.”
“This just really isn’t what I need right now,” Nate says, curling his hands around his coffee cup. “Or, you know, ever.”
“Because you’re always so good about making your needs known,” Blair retorts, and Nate’s jaw clenches slightly.
“Go on,” he says after a moment, “just get it all out of your system, all right? I’m sure you’ve got plenty to say.” Just like everyone.
“You’re right,” she says after a moment, pursing her lips briefly. “I have a lot to say.” Her tone takes on a saccharine edge. “But getting it all out in one go? Way too easy on you, Nate, not my style.” (Too easy on him, and too hard for her. Exacting revenge on Nate was never half as easy or as satisfying as it was with anyone else).
“You’re going to have to start somewhere,” he points out; the statement sounds a little sharper than he really meant it to, and he grimaces slightly at the tone. “Look,” Nate says, softer, “I’m sorry you had to find out like this. I... I should probably have told you a while ago, I just... didn’t know how.”
“You’re going to have to start somewhere,” she throws back at him, and crosses her arms over her chest. “I always find out like this. First my best friend, then your best friend... You must be done now, right? Or are you going to go after Humphrey’s best friend, what was her name... Vanessa?” Blair gives him an artificial smile. “Oh, right. Never mind. You’ve done that, too.”
“It’s not like it's something you just drop in conversation,” Nate retorts, voice rising a bit. “What was I supposed to say, ‘Oh Blair, by the way, I’m screwing Chuck, how’d you do on the math test?’ Besides, we both remember how well it worked the last time I tried being honest with you, and outing myself to anyone is not high on my list of fun ways to spend my time.”
“You've never been honest with me, Nate," she says, leaning forward in her chair. “Do you get that? Never. I guess it’s good we got out of that while we were ahead, but I was in it, okay? I was- stupid.” She sits back, rolling her eyes at the ceiling. “You keep making that clearer and clearer.”
(This isn't what she came here for. She isn't sure, exactly, what she came here for, but some part of her needs this, some part of her can't let it go. It's obnoxious, this very loud part of her that keeps demanding what about me? and keeps bringing certain events to the forefront of her mind. She wants to shut it up, this annoying, piping voice, the little girl who's always griping about something, anything, just to be heard. Get it together, Waldorf. This obviously has nothing to do with you.
Only it doesn't feel that way.)
“Blair,” Nate says, a little helplessly, and sets his coffee cup aside to prop his elbows on the table, hide his face in his hands for a long moment. He draws in a slow breath and lets it out just as slowly before he looks up again. “What exactly are you angry with me for? We’ve been split up for almost a year, we- look, Blair, I... I care about you. I always did. I don’t think we were right for each other, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t important to me. It... it matters to me what you think, it matters because you matter.” He sounds nervous, uncomfortable, but also almost painfully sincere, the kind of wrenching earnestness that he gets sometimes, when he is lost and laid bare.
“If you’re upset at me because I didn’t tell you, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t. If you’re upset because you don’t want me to have anything with anyone else, I don’t owe you an apology. And if you’re upset because you still want Chuck, then just tell him that. God knows it’s what he wants to hear.”
For long, long moments, Blair is silent, looking at him. Nate's shoulders are hunched, guilt and misery and the weight of a million different things dragging down on him. Of course. What else would she have expected? (But she feels guilty, she feels cruel, she feels like she wants to pretend everything is perfect for him the way she used to; she always wanted so badly for Nate to believe it.)
“Okay,” she finally says, bringing her hands up to cradle her coffee cup without lifting it. “So you’re out. Congratulations. So. Are you going to hide until it blows over, or milk the scandal for all it’s worth? Before you answer, the first option never works.”
“I don’t want to milk it for anything,” Nate answers dully, pausing to take a long drink of his coffee now that it has cooled a bit, “but it's not like I can hide. I mean, the entire school knows. It’s not as if I could cut class long enough for them to forget I had- to forget about this.”
God, he can’t even say it, not when he’s being serious. He can’t look her in the eye and say I had sex with Chuck. Blair belongs to that world of perfection, perfect lives and perfect plans; she is part of the perfect future that Nate has spent his whole life being told all about by all the adults around him, a future that has no room for a boy who has sex with another boy, even one as filthy rich as Chuck Bass.
“You could charter a private jet. Head off somewhere. Settle the missed school time with a generous donation,” she offers off-handedly, watching him. “Do you want them to forget?”
Nate hesitates for a long, long moment. “Yes,” he finally admits, but he sounds ashamed to say it. “I’m not exactly okay with this myself, yet. I’ve kind of spent a long time not wanting to be... not straight.” The admission is halting; it’s hard enough for Nate to sort through the mess of thoughts and feelings and secrets and reasons in his own mind, without having to try and articulate them for another person.
Blair looks like she’s about to press for more answers, start asking things like how long? or why didn’t you tell me? Things Nate doesn’t want to ever have to tell her. She doesn’t, though, just pats his arm and gets to her feet. “Buck up,” she tells him, “You’ll be fine. I just remembered, I have a few calls to make. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
“Hey.” Nate catches her wrist before she moves away and looks up at her. “Listen, I... thanks. Just... thanks, Blair.”
A soft, real smile tugs at the corners of her lips. “You, too, Archibald.”
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