she belongs to fairytales that i could never be
Title: she belongs to fairytales that i could never be
Characters: Nate/Serena, Nate/Blair, Serena/Dan
Rating/Word Count: pg-13/1, 175
One-Line Excerpt: He gives her everything he has, and as usual, it's not enough.
She kisses him once before the wedding.
They're fourteen, at a party Kati and Iz are throwing. She's drunk, fresh out of the rooftop hottub, her eyes glazed over but somehow supremely focused. It is not an accident. It is deliberate, her lips fitting perfectly against his, her hands wet when they press against his shirt.
He lets her determine the length of it, and yes, he kisses her back. When she pulls away he says, "I have a girlfriend." He pauses, remembers that she's dating that senior on the polo team with the obnoxious smile and reminds her, "You have a boyfriend."
And she laughs, sharp enough to cut himself on, unrecognizable. "He'll never find out."
--
It feels like a crescendo, a movie script ending, with her laughter in his ears and the setting sun through the windows, and the way she settles herself on his lap, so close. For once in his life he really feels like the hero when she slips off the bar and into his arms and he's sure, in that moment, that she belongs there.
"Nate." The way she says his name is laden with something he can't quite understand, something needy and aching.
He leaves a trail of slow kisses up her neck, slips his hands beneath her dress. He gives her everything he has, and as usual, it's not enough.
--
The next wedding he goes to is hers.
Blair is his date - or rather, he's Blair's, since she was the one who got the invite. They're still together, after all these years, having survived a long distance relationship while completing their undergraduate degrees. He still loves her, he does, but every so often he thinks that he's already ruined them, that he is a single confession away from ruining her.
Next to him, she grumbles. "You know, he's from Brooklyn."
He laughs at the disdain in her tone; he kisses her.
--
They are there when he marries Blair, she and him, he and her.
He says I do and a tear rolls down Blair's cheek. He leans in to kiss it away, long before he's actually supposed to kiss her at all, and their guests coo adoringly. He is what she's always wanted, her happy ending, and he loves being able to give it to her so easily, such an simple wish to grant.
--
Nate drinks too much at their one-year anniversary party. It's an accident, really - Chuck in town, a never-ending supply of scotch, and an attentive bartender add up to his intoxication.
He finds Serena - golden in her dress, golden under the soft lighting, golden in his eyes. He kisses her on the upper floor of the building, just shy of the balcony, just out of sight.
"S." He says her name a little like a prayer, a lot like the plea - the other end of the alphabet, the one that got away.
"I'm married," she says softly, like déjà vu, her lips still a breath away from his. A moment passes and then she reminds him, "So are you."
"She'll never find out." He catches her hand before she runs away, weaves their fingers together just to see what it feels like. "What did you want from me?"
For a second she doesn't look at him, and he's sure she's going to pull away, but then she turns around and her fingertips of her free hand slip under his chin, holding his face steady as she kisses him, delicate and dizzying, like the glare of a sunlight filtered through half-filled bottles on a bar.
It serves, that kiss, as an acceptable answer.
--
He watches from the balcony as she walks back to him, to the man she chose forever with, her strappy shoes dangling from the fingers of one of her hands. With one kiss - one comfortable, solid kiss - she erases the memory of Nate, eyes falling closed as she wraps her arms around her husband's neck.
And then he scoops her up as if she's lighter than a feather, gathers her into his arms, a knight in black slacks and a gold-coloured vest. He tilts his face toward Serena's and they're both smiling, private smiles only for each other, and Nate knows what that is: a whole world caught between two people, two smiles, two lives absorbed by the same magic.
He twirls her around. Nate can twirl, anyone can twirl; he remembers being five or six and holding both hands as they spun on the sidewalk, don't let me fall, Natie, don't! He remembers it clearly, but he never remembers seeing the look that she has on her face right now.
She looks at him the way you look at someone who has tilted your world on it's axis only to find out that it was meant to sit at that angle all along, the look he never even had a chance to put into her eyes, into the curve of her lips.
It's the look that comes in the aftermath of heureusx jusqu'à la fin des temps.
--
Blair is waiting for him somewhere, he knows it as well as he knows that she'll have two glasses of champagne in her hands and that she'll pretend she's going to dig the heel of her shoe into his foot as punishment when she asks where he's been. He knows how it will go, they have the ring and the marriage certificate and the jobs, they will have the children and the home in Europe to retire to in time.
He knows everything about Blair - he knows where she's ticklish and he knows that she'll roll her eyes whenever he says she's beautiful but that really she loves it, he knows what she wants to name their daughter and where she wants to vacation next year, he knows that she likes to be woken up with a kiss on her cheek and good morning, sweetheart.
They will keep loving each other now, after a golden girl is carried out of the venue, princess-style, the kind of cliché Nate always knew she'd become, the kind he wanted to play opposite to.
--
Blair has always dreamed of an ever after kind of ending, the setting of their anniversary party speaks to that desire, one she's carried with her since she was young.
He kisses her, when he finds her, before she can scold him. Her mouth tastes of champagne and he smiles against her lips, thinks of their wedding and their wedding only.
Always cast as prince charming, he'll fill his role for the girl who's always wanted him there.
This is what happens once the credits have rolled.