with your heartbeat next to mine
Title: with your heartbeat next to mine
Characters: Nate/Serena
Rating/Word Count: pg / 555
One-Line Excerpt: Don't go don't go don't go, he thinks.
one.
With the dying light of the sun pouring through the windows, painting her skin, he thinks he might have a better understanding of everything, of her body and his body and the full meaning of being inside. He's got her legs wrapped around his waist, champagne and her name on his lips.
He goes home in his slacks and blazer, sans shirt, so drunk on her that it never occurs to him that coming together might have broken them apart.
two.
Technically, the party line is that Nate goes three years without being with her.
But there is one day during that summer, that endless summer in the Hamptons, when he didn't know what he was doing and she was in that impenetrable funk.
He still doesn't know how it happened (he doesn't think that matters), but it did, it happened, in her bed at her grandma's, the one they used to share as kids. She had whispered I love you in the aftermath, when his lips were against the line of her neck, but when he'd lifted his head - hardly believing what he'd heard - she was crying over someone else.
S'okay, he'd promised her, though it hadn't been.
three.
They roll off of the couch and onto Eleanor Waldorf's floor, and it knocks the wind out of him for a second but it doesn't matter because she's giggling against his mouth and impatiently unbuttoning his shirt.
He doesn't know how he lived without her, all those days at the Vanderbilt estate. Baby, he breathes, I -
She kisses him, rolling on top of him with her knees on either side of his hips, and the words fade away.
four.
She hangs up the phone after leaving her father that message and he rubs her back gently. After a moment, she sits back, leaning into his touch, and he lowers her gradually onto the bed, careful with her, as though she might break.
He is slow and infinitely gentle with her; she clings to him like she needs him. He can feel her heartbeat, slowing down gradually, echoing against his own.
This, Nate thinks as he coaxes her mouth open with his own, this is what it means to make love.
five.
They break up.
But there is still a moment, in the evening, on the sink in one of the bathrooms at Blair's, when she's leaving for Paris in hours and all of a sudden he's buried inside of her and she's gasping right by his ear.
Don't go don't go don't go, he thinks.
Something breaks inside of him as he listens to her breathe. He clings to her - he needs her.
six.
I feel empty, she whispers.
He does, too.
A tear, and then another, drips down her cheek.
What do you want me to say? It's so hard to be angry with her; back from Europe with a new lilt to her words and a new tan on her skin but she still has his world in her eyes.
She moves from her side of the couch to his. I love you.
Inside of him, something snaps back into place.
Her voice is so soft but so certain. Love me back.
It shouldn't be that easy.
He catches her tears on his fingertips and slips his other hand under her shirt, wishes he knew a way to make her understand that he always has.
fin
Characters: Nate/Serena
Rating/Word Count: pg / 555
One-Line Excerpt: Don't go don't go don't go, he thinks.
one.
With the dying light of the sun pouring through the windows, painting her skin, he thinks he might have a better understanding of everything, of her body and his body and the full meaning of being inside. He's got her legs wrapped around his waist, champagne and her name on his lips.
He goes home in his slacks and blazer, sans shirt, so drunk on her that it never occurs to him that coming together might have broken them apart.
two.
Technically, the party line is that Nate goes three years without being with her.
But there is one day during that summer, that endless summer in the Hamptons, when he didn't know what he was doing and she was in that impenetrable funk.
He still doesn't know how it happened (he doesn't think that matters), but it did, it happened, in her bed at her grandma's, the one they used to share as kids. She had whispered I love you in the aftermath, when his lips were against the line of her neck, but when he'd lifted his head - hardly believing what he'd heard - she was crying over someone else.
S'okay, he'd promised her, though it hadn't been.
three.
They roll off of the couch and onto Eleanor Waldorf's floor, and it knocks the wind out of him for a second but it doesn't matter because she's giggling against his mouth and impatiently unbuttoning his shirt.
He doesn't know how he lived without her, all those days at the Vanderbilt estate. Baby, he breathes, I -
She kisses him, rolling on top of him with her knees on either side of his hips, and the words fade away.
four.
She hangs up the phone after leaving her father that message and he rubs her back gently. After a moment, she sits back, leaning into his touch, and he lowers her gradually onto the bed, careful with her, as though she might break.
He is slow and infinitely gentle with her; she clings to him like she needs him. He can feel her heartbeat, slowing down gradually, echoing against his own.
This, Nate thinks as he coaxes her mouth open with his own, this is what it means to make love.
five.
They break up.
But there is still a moment, in the evening, on the sink in one of the bathrooms at Blair's, when she's leaving for Paris in hours and all of a sudden he's buried inside of her and she's gasping right by his ear.
Don't go don't go don't go, he thinks.
Something breaks inside of him as he listens to her breathe. He clings to her - he needs her.
six.
I feel empty, she whispers.
He does, too.
A tear, and then another, drips down her cheek.
What do you want me to say? It's so hard to be angry with her; back from Europe with a new lilt to her words and a new tan on her skin but she still has his world in her eyes.
She moves from her side of the couch to his. I love you.
Inside of him, something snaps back into place.
Her voice is so soft but so certain. Love me back.
It shouldn't be that easy.
He catches her tears on his fingertips and slips his other hand under her shirt, wishes he knew a way to make her understand that he always has.
fin