i would've loved you anyways
i would’ve loved you anyways. gossip girl. nate/serena. 1394 words. pg13. "I'm impossible to love," Serena sniffles during recess.
written for sing_song_sung. I hope you like it!
The sun set on another day and Serena curled her turquoise painted toes into the sand as the sky burned a deep red.
There’s a man who calls her name from the dunes. He is tall and handsome and loves her. Serena closes her eyes and wishes it were Nate.
"I'm impossible to love," Serena sniffles during recess.
"Oh Serena, please stop crying! I hate it when you cry."
Nate's hands on her shoulders make Serena look up, still sniffling.
"My mom said I'm impossible!"
Hearing it out loud makes her wail all over again, Nate's face becoming increasingly alarmed. Serena notices the cute wrinkle in his forehead.
"I love you lots."
It is a fact, a statement, there's no question about it. Five year old Nate knows that he loves her.
"Yeah but nobody loves me like you, 'cept for Blair maybe."
Nate smiles, face lit up like he just got an idea.
"Maybe that's the problem, S. No one loves you like me."
Freshmen year of high school, Serena went with Chuck to Homecoming. Nate can vividly recall the dress she was wearing - the bright purple color of it that matched Chuck’s bowtie and the way the hem skimmed along her fingers and her enormous gold heels.
In the limo, Serena spilled some champagne over his new Hugo Boss jacket and they laughed about it mostly. Chuck was lighting up in the corner, the smoke seeping into every pore of Nate’s skin and creating this golden haze around everyone in the limo. Blair complained about the smell of it, but Serena pressed every inch of her arm against his and Nate could only smell her.
Serena will admit that she isn’t nearly as knowledgeable as she should be - she doesn’t watch the news or follow politics and the only subscriptions she gets are Vogue, W, and Cosmo.
But she likes to think she makes up for it in other ways. She tries to be a good friend and sister, makes sure Blair keeps her food down and Erik feels loved and Chuck isn’t self-imploding.
A boyfriend she had in college, Ethan Morrison, scoffed whenever she would turn the channel from CNN to Keeping Up With the Kardashians. A month later she asked him to explain the situation in Iraq to her, because god she was trying so hard to be what her wanted her to be, but he had shook his head in disgust and called her stupid.
After breaking up with him later that night, she walked over to Nate’s in one of his old t-shirts and a pair of leggings, eyes puffy from crying. Nate opened the door with a solemn expression on his face and immediately pulled her into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Serena cried then too, nose tucked into Nate’s polo. The smell of his Old Spice deodorant and Hermes for Men cologne broke her heart a little.
“That guy’s an asshole, Serena,” he said later when they were in bed with a box of Pop-Tarts between them and Gilmore Girls reruns on TV. “You should be with someone who loves everything about you.”
The words make her heart twinge, her fingers splayed against the plain of his chest. The moment passes because they let it. Onscreen, Lorelai sings karaoke to Luke.
“You’re amazing,” he said to her once, when they were younger.
This is before they’ve really known heartbreak, when Serena’s legs were too gangly for her body and Nate was two inches shorter than her.
“You too, silly.”
She laughed and grabbed his hand, the two of them swinging their legs off a bench in the park.
Serena doesn’t remember that particular encounter, but Nate does. Nate remembers everything.
“Natie, I can’t believe we’re adults.”
Serena whines the second they get off the elevator. Her arms are wrapped around Nate’s neck as he carries her up the stairs piggyback. Her nose is pressed into the back of his neck and he smells warm and Nate-y. Some stray hairs get stuck on her face and she scrabbles at them with the back of her hand.
“Hey, S, you trying to throw us off balance on purpose?”
Chuck and Blair had thrown a magnificent graduation party, with tigers in cages and flaming drinks and Madonna as a surprise for Blair.
Serena and Nate did shots of tequila together, until they switched to wine and then back to hard liquor. Serena smiled when she did her shots, grabbed Nate’s hand and licked it playfully after sucking on her lime.
That was then, in Chuck’s newest hotel, but this is now. Serena leaned forward a little too fast and Nate yelled before they fell to the ground in a tumble of lean golden limbs.
“Terrible balance, Archibald.”
Serena’s face was so close to Nate’s that she could see the flecks of green in his eyes. Nate stared and mumbled something.
“What’d you say?”
Her voice is more breathless than she thought it’d be, high pitched and anticipating his answer.
He kisses her instead, and she can feel it everywhere. On the floor, the night they graduated high school, Nate makes her come twice in a row before she rolls him over and sinks onto him slowly.
“Déjà vu,” he murmured into her collarbone.
This time is better, with no Blair and in a room and Nate’s hands don’t hurt anymore but they feel just as good.
The morning after graduation, Serena gets on a plane to Italy and doesn’t come back. Nate punches a wall when Blair tells him, breaks three fingers and spends the rest of the day in the emergency room setting a cast.
The next morning he wakes up to: Natie, what did you think was going to happen if you punched a wall silly.
It's a sort of apology from her, he knows, but right now it's not nearly enough. Nate deletes the message and spends the rest of the day sullenly staring at whatever’s on TV and smoking whatever weed he has left in the apartment.
Nate dates girls - even falls in love a couple times. It always makes him feel guilty, regret gnawing at his stomach and Serena’s face hanging in his dreams. He loves Serena in a way he didn’t even think was possible. It’s all encompassing and miserable and wonderful, sometimes and ingrained into his bones. The girls he falls in love with when she’s gone, they make his way into his heart but they never get as deep or as far as Serena did.
“Enough is enough, Serena. We’ve indulged you long enough, and it’s time to come home. People need you here. I miss you.”
Serena sighs after listening to Blair’s message. Her fingers tap against the marble countertop in her kitchen and she wonders why growing up is so hard. She misses Nate so much it hurts, startles her out of her sleep with his name on her lips and a fierce ache in her heart when she realizes that she’s in her bed alone.
They are thirty when it finally happens, when Nate shows up at Blair’s birthday to find Serena looking just as beautiful as she always had.
Blair pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, shifting her gaze between the two of them until she finished her martini.
“I’ll leave you two to it, then. Try not to stain the carpet, it’s brand new.”
They stood there, with a history of abandonment and love between them, and Nate told himself he wouldn’t make the first move. Serena took the first step, and then Nate couldn’t help himself and he was striding the three steps until she was right there in front of him.
“I’m sorry I ruined us.”
Her voice is shaky, holding back tears, and Nate can feel his resolve failing.
“I just, I was so scared, Natie. God, I was terrified of how much I loved you then.”
The atmosphere in the room shifts. Nate leans towards her instead of away and Serena takes a big breath. It smells like her perfume everywhere. Nate had forgotten how much he liked it.
“Still love you, of course.”
It doesn’t take long after that, just her hand on his face and him leaning in to close the last pieces of space between them.
“Love you too, Serena.”
Her fingers find his first before she leads them into the party, together.
They should have known from the beginning that they never stood a chance with anyone else.
written for sing_song_sung. I hope you like it!
The sun set on another day and Serena curled her turquoise painted toes into the sand as the sky burned a deep red.
There’s a man who calls her name from the dunes. He is tall and handsome and loves her. Serena closes her eyes and wishes it were Nate.
"I'm impossible to love," Serena sniffles during recess.
"Oh Serena, please stop crying! I hate it when you cry."
Nate's hands on her shoulders make Serena look up, still sniffling.
"My mom said I'm impossible!"
Hearing it out loud makes her wail all over again, Nate's face becoming increasingly alarmed. Serena notices the cute wrinkle in his forehead.
"I love you lots."
It is a fact, a statement, there's no question about it. Five year old Nate knows that he loves her.
"Yeah but nobody loves me like you, 'cept for Blair maybe."
Nate smiles, face lit up like he just got an idea.
"Maybe that's the problem, S. No one loves you like me."
Freshmen year of high school, Serena went with Chuck to Homecoming. Nate can vividly recall the dress she was wearing - the bright purple color of it that matched Chuck’s bowtie and the way the hem skimmed along her fingers and her enormous gold heels.
In the limo, Serena spilled some champagne over his new Hugo Boss jacket and they laughed about it mostly. Chuck was lighting up in the corner, the smoke seeping into every pore of Nate’s skin and creating this golden haze around everyone in the limo. Blair complained about the smell of it, but Serena pressed every inch of her arm against his and Nate could only smell her.
Serena will admit that she isn’t nearly as knowledgeable as she should be - she doesn’t watch the news or follow politics and the only subscriptions she gets are Vogue, W, and Cosmo.
But she likes to think she makes up for it in other ways. She tries to be a good friend and sister, makes sure Blair keeps her food down and Erik feels loved and Chuck isn’t self-imploding.
A boyfriend she had in college, Ethan Morrison, scoffed whenever she would turn the channel from CNN to Keeping Up With the Kardashians. A month later she asked him to explain the situation in Iraq to her, because god she was trying so hard to be what her wanted her to be, but he had shook his head in disgust and called her stupid.
After breaking up with him later that night, she walked over to Nate’s in one of his old t-shirts and a pair of leggings, eyes puffy from crying. Nate opened the door with a solemn expression on his face and immediately pulled her into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Serena cried then too, nose tucked into Nate’s polo. The smell of his Old Spice deodorant and Hermes for Men cologne broke her heart a little.
“That guy’s an asshole, Serena,” he said later when they were in bed with a box of Pop-Tarts between them and Gilmore Girls reruns on TV. “You should be with someone who loves everything about you.”
The words make her heart twinge, her fingers splayed against the plain of his chest. The moment passes because they let it. Onscreen, Lorelai sings karaoke to Luke.
“You’re amazing,” he said to her once, when they were younger.
This is before they’ve really known heartbreak, when Serena’s legs were too gangly for her body and Nate was two inches shorter than her.
“You too, silly.”
She laughed and grabbed his hand, the two of them swinging their legs off a bench in the park.
Serena doesn’t remember that particular encounter, but Nate does. Nate remembers everything.
“Natie, I can’t believe we’re adults.”
Serena whines the second they get off the elevator. Her arms are wrapped around Nate’s neck as he carries her up the stairs piggyback. Her nose is pressed into the back of his neck and he smells warm and Nate-y. Some stray hairs get stuck on her face and she scrabbles at them with the back of her hand.
“Hey, S, you trying to throw us off balance on purpose?”
Chuck and Blair had thrown a magnificent graduation party, with tigers in cages and flaming drinks and Madonna as a surprise for Blair.
Serena and Nate did shots of tequila together, until they switched to wine and then back to hard liquor. Serena smiled when she did her shots, grabbed Nate’s hand and licked it playfully after sucking on her lime.
That was then, in Chuck’s newest hotel, but this is now. Serena leaned forward a little too fast and Nate yelled before they fell to the ground in a tumble of lean golden limbs.
“Terrible balance, Archibald.”
Serena’s face was so close to Nate’s that she could see the flecks of green in his eyes. Nate stared and mumbled something.
“What’d you say?”
Her voice is more breathless than she thought it’d be, high pitched and anticipating his answer.
He kisses her instead, and she can feel it everywhere. On the floor, the night they graduated high school, Nate makes her come twice in a row before she rolls him over and sinks onto him slowly.
“Déjà vu,” he murmured into her collarbone.
This time is better, with no Blair and in a room and Nate’s hands don’t hurt anymore but they feel just as good.
The morning after graduation, Serena gets on a plane to Italy and doesn’t come back. Nate punches a wall when Blair tells him, breaks three fingers and spends the rest of the day in the emergency room setting a cast.
The next morning he wakes up to: Natie, what did you think was going to happen if you punched a wall silly.
It's a sort of apology from her, he knows, but right now it's not nearly enough. Nate deletes the message and spends the rest of the day sullenly staring at whatever’s on TV and smoking whatever weed he has left in the apartment.
Nate dates girls - even falls in love a couple times. It always makes him feel guilty, regret gnawing at his stomach and Serena’s face hanging in his dreams. He loves Serena in a way he didn’t even think was possible. It’s all encompassing and miserable and wonderful, sometimes and ingrained into his bones. The girls he falls in love with when she’s gone, they make his way into his heart but they never get as deep or as far as Serena did.
“Enough is enough, Serena. We’ve indulged you long enough, and it’s time to come home. People need you here. I miss you.”
Serena sighs after listening to Blair’s message. Her fingers tap against the marble countertop in her kitchen and she wonders why growing up is so hard. She misses Nate so much it hurts, startles her out of her sleep with his name on her lips and a fierce ache in her heart when she realizes that she’s in her bed alone.
They are thirty when it finally happens, when Nate shows up at Blair’s birthday to find Serena looking just as beautiful as she always had.
Blair pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, shifting her gaze between the two of them until she finished her martini.
“I’ll leave you two to it, then. Try not to stain the carpet, it’s brand new.”
They stood there, with a history of abandonment and love between them, and Nate told himself he wouldn’t make the first move. Serena took the first step, and then Nate couldn’t help himself and he was striding the three steps until she was right there in front of him.
“I’m sorry I ruined us.”
Her voice is shaky, holding back tears, and Nate can feel his resolve failing.
“I just, I was so scared, Natie. God, I was terrified of how much I loved you then.”
The atmosphere in the room shifts. Nate leans towards her instead of away and Serena takes a big breath. It smells like her perfume everywhere. Nate had forgotten how much he liked it.
“Still love you, of course.”
It doesn’t take long after that, just her hand on his face and him leaning in to close the last pieces of space between them.
“Love you too, Serena.”
Her fingers find his first before she leads them into the party, together.
They should have known from the beginning that they never stood a chance with anyone else.