Fic: All That Shimmers Is Sure to Fade
Title: All That Shimmers is Sure to Fade
Pairing: Trip/Serena, Nate/Serena
Spoilers: Just general season 3, post Carter mind-fuck
Word Count: 2099
Summary: We're destroying lives Trip. What she doesn't tell him is that one of them may be her own.
Disclaimer: Title is a basterdized version of Fuel's Shimmer.
Annoying Author's Note That Nobody Reads But I Still Write: This is the first time I've ever written something like this. I always love stories in which the author is talented enough to say so much with so few words. I'm usually pretty wordy, but I decided that this time, to challenge myself, I would write something concise. I don't think this actually turned out all that concise. Instead, it was just kind of messed up, like something was missing, but I figured since I already worked on it for so long, I would just post it. Enjoy?
It’s the same story over and over and over again.
Just press rewind and you’re ready, set, go.
Golden hair whips into her face as she spins, watching the whole world turn into a colorful blur one shot of tequila at a time.
She thinks that she prefers it this way.
A nameless face hands her a drink as she tumbles about the dance floor and her hands clench around it tightly, as if holding it for balance.
(Don’t drink anything that strangers give you Serena. God, really, what am I going to do with you?)
She swallows it in one gulp.
Giggling she slurs her words and stumbles around the floor, but she’s Serena Van der Woodsen; she most charming when she’s tipsy.
She twirls, twirls, twirls and then she falls over onto someone’s lap.
“Well hello there stranger.”
Brown eyes, laugh lines, a familiar face.
Didn’t I make you cry one time in the third grade because I beat you in the potato sack race?
She bites her lips in order to stop the words from escaping; he wets his. .
Blue eyes sparkle and pink lips curve upwards with satisfaction.
“Trip Vanderbilt.”
He meets her for croissants.
‘It’s nothing’ she tells Blair. They’re friends, have been for a long time, it’s only natural.
Still, he tells her to meet her inside the building and she wears her largest pair of sunglasses.
(That’s so distasteful darling.
Whatever, mother.)
The croissants are golden, like her hair, and she eats one after another and then licks the excess butter off her fingers.
He’s watching the entire time, a smile splayed across his face, the corners of his mouth twitching with something more than friendship.
“Hungry?”
“Emaciated.”
“Impressive, that’s an SAT word.”
“I did quite well, thank you very much.”
Blue eyes twinkle but it’s the brown ones that really shine.
Maureen catches them together two months later.
“Oh.”
Her lips, painted a faint shade of purple, draw into themselves, creating a thin line.
“Hello Serena.”
“How are you Maureen?”
The air is thick; what if she gets crushed underneath it?
“Very well, thank you.” A pause; Maureen fiddles with the brass clasp of her purse. “And how is Lilly? I trust she is doing well?”
“Very well, thank you,” she parrots.
“Well, that’s wonderful.” A step back. “I’ve got to run.” A step back. “I hope Trip doesn’t bore you too much with his political talk.” A step back. “Goodbye Darling.”
Her heels pound against the marble floor as she makes her departure, but halfway through the lobby she turns around and takes one last look.
(Careful S, Lot’s wife looked back and she turned into a pillar of salt.
I feel like a pillar of salt.
What does that even mean?
I don’t know B, I just do.)
Whatever.
She’s done nothing wrong.
Still, she can’t help but notice that Trip was quiet during the whole exchange.
One day she wakes up in nothing but a white dress shirt swimming in a sea of silk sheets and goose-down pillows.
She wonders how she got here.
Well there’s the basic explanation with birds and bees and Tripp spending most of last night pollinating her.
Next, behind door two you have your religious zealot with Adam and Eve and fruits and serpents and labor pain and menstrual cycles.
And, drum roll please, our final contestant behind door three: love.
Serena Van der Woodsen believes in love.
She likes to pretend that she doesn’t, that Lilly’s past and her past and Eric’s past and Blair’s past and Chuck’s past and Nate’s past and Dan’s past and the whole entire history of the fucking Upper East Side has jaded her.
But still, she spins; shinning hair and shinning eyes.
She shouldn’t believe in love, but she does. She does, she does, she do-
Warm hands reach out for her and snake around her neck.
“Come back to bed.”
A giggle.
“Yes Congressman.”
She does.
An intermission:
“Don’t fall in too deep,” Chuck tells her in between Blair’s disapproval and Lilly’s self-righteousness.
“I can’t fish you out if you fall in too deep.” Reproach darkens his eyes but loyalty shines through.
She doesn’t care; she tumbles, she tumbles, she tumbles.
No downward spiral is supposed to be this beautiful she thinks.
And maybe she’s looking for something.
Maybe she’s looking for her father’s love or society’s acceptance or her mother’s recognition or her brother’s approval or her best friend’s love story.
But it doesn’t feel like it.
It feels like Trip’s hands, soft and shaky running up and down her arms. It feels like Trip’s tongue spelling out dirty thoughts onto hers. It feels like her heart entering cardiac arrest and any other term that she never bothered to learn.
(It’s magical right?
Yeah.
God, when Chuck touches me it’s like I’m ready to go, right there and then. Just the other day we were with Eleanor and then he started tracing circles on my back so then I had to take him to the bathroom and we-
Ew! B, I’m glad you’re happy but could you not describe your sex life with my brother?
Whatever. But you get it right?)
But maybe.
Lilly decides to come through just once; putting her children before her doesn’t come easily but Eric’s blood still stains an unfading red on both palms.
“You don’t want to do this Serena. You don’t want this on your conscience.”
“I’m happy mother.” The I-thought-you-would-understand-this-out-of-all-people rings clear and Lilly Van der Humphrey before the ink on the Bass death certificate even dried is reminded that there is more than her son’s blood staining her hands.
“Is happiness worth it if it comes at someone else’s expense?” She asks her daughter (she asks herself).
They are at a restaurant in Puerto Rico.
It’s the only place that they can go out in public together and it’s starting to bother her, but then he takes her hand and kisses her palms.
“I love you.”
She smiles.
(Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod. I don’t know what to do, B.
Well is he the one?)
“I love you too.”
They barely make it back to the hotel room.
(I think so.)
(Here’s a secret she doesn’t tell Blair: she tries to get out of it once, just once.
She’s done the slut spiral, the alcohol spiral, the spiral from redemption, but she has never done this.
“We’re hurting people Tripp.”
“I know, and I hate it, but I love you.”
Is love enough?)
She runs into her one day at Barneys.
Maureen is fingering a purple scarf, her hands absentmindedly tracing over the patterns etched on the silk.
For a second, Serena turns to go but then Maureen looks up and she freezes.
“Serena,” she says with a slight nod.
“Hi.”
“Do you think I should get this scarf?” she implores.
(Please I just want my husband back.)
“It’s beautiful,” is all Serena is able to offer.
(I’m so sorry Maureen.)
“We’re destroying lives Trip.”
What she doesn’t tell him is that one of them may be her own.
Politics are his first love.
It’s okay, Serena’s always liked driven men. But the thing that she’s never realized is that most of them were driven by her.
Whatever, it’s just an adjustment.
She’s Serena Van der Woodsen. She’s flexible; just ask the male half of the Upper East Side.
Besides, ambition is sexy.
Still, sometimes, she wishes that she doesn’t always have to be Marilyn. Sometimes, even though she knows better (Marilyn gets to have all the fun), she just wants to be Jackie. She wants to be able to be seen with him somewhere outside. She wants to wear ugly suits and kiss babies and wave at the adoring public beside him because she is his wife, and she just wants it so bad, so bad, so bad, so bad that it makes her heart fucking ache.
But it’s no big thing.
(Sometimes I’m just so tired of all the secrets, B.
Well is he the one?)
“Baby, you know that I have to make sacrifices for my career.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t love you, okay? I love you Serena Van der Woodsen.”
Brown eyes search in earnest for understanding.
“I know.”
(I don’t know.)
It turns out that Maureen comes before she does too.
The phone rings in the middle of dinner with that special twinkling ringtone that Trip’s assigned to Maureen’s calls so that his two worlds don’t collide.
“Hello?”
Hushed whispers fall over the table and she can hear Tripp’s faint protests: “I’m with a client right now,” he hisses, “I’m busy” he insists, “please” he murmurs. But in the end he slouches forward and gives his head a slight nod.
“I’m so sorry Serena, something came up.”
It’s our anniversary she wants to plead, but anniversary of what? The first passing of their sin? The first time they destroyed a family together? The first time she deluded herself into thinking that anything would ever be okay again?
“Just go.”
“Serena, she’s my wife.”
French manicured tips reach around his wrist and dig into his skin.
“And what am I?”
A beat. Another. And again.
Looking down he gently pries his hand away from hers.
“We are not talking about this now,” and he exits, stage left.
It’s a tired old cliché recycled one time too many.
God she’s pathetic.
(Are you sure that you’re okay?
She smiles, nods.
Well you’re going to have to face it sooner or later Serena.
She laughs.
You’re too perceptive for your own good E.
A shrug.
Wisdom comes with attempted suicide, I think.)
Trip makes a lot of promises.
I promise to take you to Santa Barbra next week.
I promise that we’ll celebrate your birthday this weekend.
I promise that I won’t forget to pick you up tomorrow.
I promise that we can go away to the woods again, someday.
I promise that I’ll leave Mau-
(Don’t Trip. Not that one.
Why not?
Just stop.)
Serena hates his promises.
She doesn’t need the fantasy of a happily ever after with some other woman’s prince; they’re not why she’s here.
(Then why are you doing this?
Eric, please.
Serena, what are you doing?
No more questions, okay?
Fine.)
Trip lets her down.
“I promise, promise, promise to be better Serena,” brown eyes stretched wide.
She knows its all smoke and mirrors. He is a politician after all, and lies are his sin of choice.
(She wonders what hers is; gluttony maybe? Because she knows that she wants, wants what she can’t have and isn’t able to give up what she does have.)
She’s been here before and before and before and before.
His palms lay face up before her.
Gingerly she places her hand in his.
(Whatever, it’s not like she knows anything else.)
(Oh, maybe it’s sloth.)
She ends it with Trip…well, never. Instead he moves up in office.
“I’m going to Washington Serena. This could mean big things for me.”
After four years with a politician she’s become a near professional at decoding diplomatic neutralities.
Translation: Something better has come along.
“I think that we should spend some time apart and reassess where this relationship is going. So, I don’t really think that it’s in our best interest if you come with me.”
Translation: I can’t be president with you as my something extra.
Oh.
(Hey Eric; ask me.
Ask you what?
Ask me how I am.
How are you?)
“Well that’s too bad. I wish you luck.”
He falters; “you don’t really mean that, do you?”
(I’m fine.)
The first thing she tells Blair is that she can’t believe that she let it go on for so long.
The next thing she tells Blair is that she feels lonely, just a little bit, and even though she knows the whole relationship was destructive she just can’t help but feel like maybe she lost something.
“I’m an imperfect person B.”
“Obviously.”
An eye roll.
Serena smiles; at least she’ll always have one person by her side.
She meets Nate for coffee and it feels like they’re sixteen again; their golden limbs tangling and folding into one another while Blair and Chuck roll their eyes in the background and continue their game of chess and sexual banter.
Even now she still laughs loudly; just like before he thinks.
“I heard about you and Trip. I’m sorry,” he says.
It feels like something more.
She smiles.
It’s the same story, over and over and over again.
Except this time it’s not.