i beg and steal, i follow you
Title: i beg and steal, i follow you
Characters: Nate/Serena
Rating/Word Count: PG/2,300
One-Line Excerpt: His fingers slide along the small of her back until he's got his arm around her waist and she's forced to lean against him a bit.
She lasts two weeks in L.A. before she can't take it any more. It's too hot, and traffic is absolutely stupid, and no one cares who she is, which she thought would be a really nice change, but it's not. If she has to explain her entire life within a 30 second time span one more time, she's going to scream. And usually after those 30 seconds are up, people walk away and forget about her anyway. She likes heat, and she likes summer, and really, she can walk instead of drive. But she doesn't want everyone knowing about her whole life, and honestly, even when she gets to decide what story to tell, she can't find the best combination of words to put together to summarize her life to perfect strangers.
And people are mean. Blair is her best friend, but these people are mean and make Blair look like a tiny little kitten. And Blair's intentions are usually at least partly good. Maybe entirely self-serving, sometimes, but still.
Serena starts packing her bags an hour before she needs to get to the airport and leaves right away. She still almost misses her flight. As soon as she's sitting on the plane, she closes her eyes and lets out a breath, and a girl across the aisle says, "Hey, aren't you Serena?" and she hates that something inside her snaps back into place.
... ... ...
Eric picks her up from the airport and says she's too blonde and too tanned, and she knows he's joking because she told him almost every day that she hated L.A. weather and it was making her look different than summers in New York.
After dinner with their mother, he taps on Serena's door, pokes his head in and asks, "How do you feel about the Hamptons?"
... ... ...
They get drunk the first night. She's never seen her baby brother really drunk before, and it's fun and hilarious and they sit with their feet in the pool and he gasps every time she shifts, because he's paranoid that she's going to fall in.
"Relax, Eric," she giggles, kicking her feet out and splashing water across the pool. "You know CPR."
"I don't know drunk CPR!"
She leans against him, blonde hair falling down his arm as she laughs, and pretends she can't hear him when he says she looks happier than she has in a while.
She doesn't know if it's true, and if it's not, she really doesn't like how well she can fake it.
... ... ...
She's reading a book with a pink cover in her bikini by the pool when Eric comes walking out from the house reading from his phone, then typing out a reply. He's laughing pretty hard, so she's curious enough to ask what's so funny.
"Chuck. He's in Brazil. I don't know why he thinks I want to know what the women are like there, but he insists on telling me."
"Oh." She wrinkles her nose. "Is he still with..."
"Yeah."
He gives her the sad, sympathetic nod, and she's very rarely ever annoyed with her little brother, but she's struck by it right now. It bothers her that some people think she can't hear Nate's name or be in a room with him without being sad or depressed or lovestruck. She and Nate happened and it didn't work out, but they've been relatively fine since then. They're friends, and she hopes he does have a great summer.
It's not her fault if part of her wishes he were here. It's weird, maybe, because she's fine with it being just she and Eric. She doesn't really want Chuck to come and have some ridiculous party, or Blair to come and fill all this amazing silence with stories about The Prince and Europe and all those things Serena doesn't even really feel all that happy about. Of course, she can't say that. Probably why she really doesn't want to sit there and fake it.
But she wouldn't mind if Nate were here, making fun of her for reading a pink book, or for having more bikinis that aren't meant to swim in than ones that are. Or to splash her in the pool until it's a full on war, or to wake her up in the middle of the night because he found beer in the fridge and 'felt bad letting it sit there'.
She assumes, since apparently Eric and Chuck are talking, that Nate knows she's back. It shouldn't matter, but it does.
"Well, tell them I say hi."
She turns her page, even though she wasn't done reading the previous one, and ignores the look Eric's giving her.
... ... ...
The day before her birthday, she walks into the house and hears laughing in the kitchen, and there are definitely more people here now than there were this morning when she left. It's kind of silly, but there's this bakery in town and they were offering classes on cake decorating, and she thought it sounded like fun, so she's been going twice a week. What else is she going to do? She has four cupcakes with yellow roses piped on top in a box in her hand, and she doesn't bother kicking off her flip flops before heading into the kitchen to see what's going on.
"Hey!" Nate says happily from his place atop the counter. He has a beer dangling between two fingers, and Chuck is standing there, smirking, holding a glass of something. "What's in the box."
"Cupcakes." She thinks it's messed up that it's the first thing he asks. "What are you doing here?"
Nate shrugs and Chuck tilts his head. "Someone has a birthday. We were on the continent. Thought we'd stop by."
She lets herself smile, because she knows neither of them is going to admit they had this planned all summer long. She steals Nate's beer and they make fun of her icing roses (which are actually not bad; her teacher told her) but they eat her cupcakes anyway.
... ... ...
Chuck gives her a Cartier bracelet for her birthday. It's gorgeous and extravagant and entirely too much, but she loves it anyway and he clasps it onto her wrist as the box falls to the floor next to her bed. And yes, she thought it was only fair to text the guys and tell them to come to her room, even though they were all in the same house as her. Eric's idea of making breakfast in bed was to bring iced coffee and toast with strawberry jam, which is actually kind of perfect, mostly because it reminds her of him doing the same thing when they were younger.
Eric gives her a bunch of books all about cakes and decorating, and the pictures are amazing and she'll probably never be able to do any of these things, but she likes that he believes her when she says she wants to do them.
And Nate got her a leather-bound journal with this beautiful design imprinted in the leather, and her initials embroidered on the cover.
"I saw it in Peru and..." He shrugs his shoulder and she runs her hands over the leather, her diamond bracelet catching the light from the window. "Looked like you."
She absolutely loves it. It's too pretty to write in, so she sets it on her bedside table and it'll stay there for the rest of the summer.
... ... ...
She's out walking around because the air conditioning is starting to sting her eyes and make her feel weird. She spent all morning (she couldn't sleep, so she was up at 7:00) in the kitchen baking cupcakes, and she's planning on decorating them, but she's waiting for them to cool. Her hair's pulled back into a messy ponytail and makeup wasn't a priority whatsoever.
She's walking across the lawn slowly in the morning sun when she sees Nate coming towards her with a cup of coffee in his hand.
"I stole a cupcake." Her jaw drops in fake mortification. "Sorry! They just smelled so good."
"They're not even iced." He shrugs his shoulder and she steals a sip of his coffee. "What are you doing up?"
He shrugs again. "It's like, 11:00."
"Aren't you jetlagged?" she asks as they stroll along, side by side. He shrugs again, and she punches his shoulder and turns away. He grabs her wrist with his free hand and pulls her back to him. "Stop doing that."
"What?" he laughs.
"Why did you even come here?" She looks over at him as they walk. He looks almost offended. "Not that I mind. I like that you guys came, but...I just thought..."
"I wanted to see you. We both wanted to see you. Honest." She believes him. Even if she didn't, she might not care. "You can't have your birthday alone with your brother. That's just..."
She tilts her head and looks at him incredulously. "Nate."
He shrugs his shoulder, then laughs when she rolls her eyes. He takes a long sip of his coffee, then offers her the rest and she cradles the mug in her hands. "I missed you, you know? Not even just when I was traveling, but...This year was so...I don't even know what this year was." He sighs and they're walking down the lawn towards the fountain she's always loved but pretended to hate. "It felt like a filler year. Like, a really, really dramatic, ridiculous filler year."
She laughs quietly and looks over at him. "Is that your way of saying you want next year to be better?"
"I don't know. I guess, yeah."
"And that..." She pauses, takes a breath and looks straight ahead. "That somehow starts with spending my birthday in the Hamptons and bringing me pretty things from Peru?"
His fingers slide along the small of her back until he's got his arm around her waist and she's forced to lean against him a bit. She loves that. She can smell his deodorant and his...There's something she can't place. It's not aftershave, because he hasn't shaved. It's something new, something she's never smelled on him before. She wants to find out what it is. She just really hates not knowing things about him.
"It really can't hurt, can it?" he says after a moment, digging his fingers into her side and laughing when she squirms. "We're good, you know?"
"Yeah."
"Things are always weird when we're not really talking, for whatever reason." She just thinks that when they are talking, they're both reminded of how easy things are between them. Even right now, they just seem to naturally gravitate to one another. She can't remember why that's supposed to be a bad thing. "Why are you so quiet?"
"I'm not." She laughs when she realizes she can't really deny it. "I'm glad you're here."
"Yeah?" He asks, letting his arm slip away and then taking her hand instead. "Wanna strip down and get into the fountain?"
"Nate!" she squeals, shoving him away. Once, when they were kids, they did that very thing, stripped down into their underwear and jumped into the fountain when one of Serena's relatives was having a wedding reception here on the lawn. They got into so much trouble for that. "No."
"Come on," he laughs. "There's no one around right now." She shakes her head as she smiles, and turns to walk back to the house, but he tugs on the hand he's still holding and says, "Hey."
"What?" she asks when they're face to face again.
He just grins and pulls her into a hug so tight and so familiar it forces her to close her eyes. She can feel his heart pounding and she knows hers is doing the same as he tangles his fingers in the end of her ponytail.
"Can I stay all summer?" he asks, more quietly than he has to, even though his lips are right next to her ear. Touching it, actually.
He doesn't have to ask, and he probably understands that, so she's not going to answer. She just slides her hands up his back and takes a deep breath.
She can't remember when she dropped the empty coffee mug, but Nate picks it up and holds it as they walk back to the house, his arm draped around her shoulder, and talk about her new found passion for pastries.
Characters: Nate/Serena
Rating/Word Count: PG/2,300
One-Line Excerpt: His fingers slide along the small of her back until he's got his arm around her waist and she's forced to lean against him a bit.
She lasts two weeks in L.A. before she can't take it any more. It's too hot, and traffic is absolutely stupid, and no one cares who she is, which she thought would be a really nice change, but it's not. If she has to explain her entire life within a 30 second time span one more time, she's going to scream. And usually after those 30 seconds are up, people walk away and forget about her anyway. She likes heat, and she likes summer, and really, she can walk instead of drive. But she doesn't want everyone knowing about her whole life, and honestly, even when she gets to decide what story to tell, she can't find the best combination of words to put together to summarize her life to perfect strangers.
And people are mean. Blair is her best friend, but these people are mean and make Blair look like a tiny little kitten. And Blair's intentions are usually at least partly good. Maybe entirely self-serving, sometimes, but still.
Serena starts packing her bags an hour before she needs to get to the airport and leaves right away. She still almost misses her flight. As soon as she's sitting on the plane, she closes her eyes and lets out a breath, and a girl across the aisle says, "Hey, aren't you Serena?" and she hates that something inside her snaps back into place.
... ... ...
Eric picks her up from the airport and says she's too blonde and too tanned, and she knows he's joking because she told him almost every day that she hated L.A. weather and it was making her look different than summers in New York.
After dinner with their mother, he taps on Serena's door, pokes his head in and asks, "How do you feel about the Hamptons?"
... ... ...
They get drunk the first night. She's never seen her baby brother really drunk before, and it's fun and hilarious and they sit with their feet in the pool and he gasps every time she shifts, because he's paranoid that she's going to fall in.
"Relax, Eric," she giggles, kicking her feet out and splashing water across the pool. "You know CPR."
"I don't know drunk CPR!"
She leans against him, blonde hair falling down his arm as she laughs, and pretends she can't hear him when he says she looks happier than she has in a while.
She doesn't know if it's true, and if it's not, she really doesn't like how well she can fake it.
... ... ...
She's reading a book with a pink cover in her bikini by the pool when Eric comes walking out from the house reading from his phone, then typing out a reply. He's laughing pretty hard, so she's curious enough to ask what's so funny.
"Chuck. He's in Brazil. I don't know why he thinks I want to know what the women are like there, but he insists on telling me."
"Oh." She wrinkles her nose. "Is he still with..."
"Yeah."
He gives her the sad, sympathetic nod, and she's very rarely ever annoyed with her little brother, but she's struck by it right now. It bothers her that some people think she can't hear Nate's name or be in a room with him without being sad or depressed or lovestruck. She and Nate happened and it didn't work out, but they've been relatively fine since then. They're friends, and she hopes he does have a great summer.
It's not her fault if part of her wishes he were here. It's weird, maybe, because she's fine with it being just she and Eric. She doesn't really want Chuck to come and have some ridiculous party, or Blair to come and fill all this amazing silence with stories about The Prince and Europe and all those things Serena doesn't even really feel all that happy about. Of course, she can't say that. Probably why she really doesn't want to sit there and fake it.
But she wouldn't mind if Nate were here, making fun of her for reading a pink book, or for having more bikinis that aren't meant to swim in than ones that are. Or to splash her in the pool until it's a full on war, or to wake her up in the middle of the night because he found beer in the fridge and 'felt bad letting it sit there'.
She assumes, since apparently Eric and Chuck are talking, that Nate knows she's back. It shouldn't matter, but it does.
"Well, tell them I say hi."
She turns her page, even though she wasn't done reading the previous one, and ignores the look Eric's giving her.
... ... ...
The day before her birthday, she walks into the house and hears laughing in the kitchen, and there are definitely more people here now than there were this morning when she left. It's kind of silly, but there's this bakery in town and they were offering classes on cake decorating, and she thought it sounded like fun, so she's been going twice a week. What else is she going to do? She has four cupcakes with yellow roses piped on top in a box in her hand, and she doesn't bother kicking off her flip flops before heading into the kitchen to see what's going on.
"Hey!" Nate says happily from his place atop the counter. He has a beer dangling between two fingers, and Chuck is standing there, smirking, holding a glass of something. "What's in the box."
"Cupcakes." She thinks it's messed up that it's the first thing he asks. "What are you doing here?"
Nate shrugs and Chuck tilts his head. "Someone has a birthday. We were on the continent. Thought we'd stop by."
She lets herself smile, because she knows neither of them is going to admit they had this planned all summer long. She steals Nate's beer and they make fun of her icing roses (which are actually not bad; her teacher told her) but they eat her cupcakes anyway.
... ... ...
Chuck gives her a Cartier bracelet for her birthday. It's gorgeous and extravagant and entirely too much, but she loves it anyway and he clasps it onto her wrist as the box falls to the floor next to her bed. And yes, she thought it was only fair to text the guys and tell them to come to her room, even though they were all in the same house as her. Eric's idea of making breakfast in bed was to bring iced coffee and toast with strawberry jam, which is actually kind of perfect, mostly because it reminds her of him doing the same thing when they were younger.
Eric gives her a bunch of books all about cakes and decorating, and the pictures are amazing and she'll probably never be able to do any of these things, but she likes that he believes her when she says she wants to do them.
And Nate got her a leather-bound journal with this beautiful design imprinted in the leather, and her initials embroidered on the cover.
"I saw it in Peru and..." He shrugs his shoulder and she runs her hands over the leather, her diamond bracelet catching the light from the window. "Looked like you."
She absolutely loves it. It's too pretty to write in, so she sets it on her bedside table and it'll stay there for the rest of the summer.
... ... ...
She's out walking around because the air conditioning is starting to sting her eyes and make her feel weird. She spent all morning (she couldn't sleep, so she was up at 7:00) in the kitchen baking cupcakes, and she's planning on decorating them, but she's waiting for them to cool. Her hair's pulled back into a messy ponytail and makeup wasn't a priority whatsoever.
She's walking across the lawn slowly in the morning sun when she sees Nate coming towards her with a cup of coffee in his hand.
"I stole a cupcake." Her jaw drops in fake mortification. "Sorry! They just smelled so good."
"They're not even iced." He shrugs his shoulder and she steals a sip of his coffee. "What are you doing up?"
He shrugs again. "It's like, 11:00."
"Aren't you jetlagged?" she asks as they stroll along, side by side. He shrugs again, and she punches his shoulder and turns away. He grabs her wrist with his free hand and pulls her back to him. "Stop doing that."
"What?" he laughs.
"Why did you even come here?" She looks over at him as they walk. He looks almost offended. "Not that I mind. I like that you guys came, but...I just thought..."
"I wanted to see you. We both wanted to see you. Honest." She believes him. Even if she didn't, she might not care. "You can't have your birthday alone with your brother. That's just..."
She tilts her head and looks at him incredulously. "Nate."
He shrugs his shoulder, then laughs when she rolls her eyes. He takes a long sip of his coffee, then offers her the rest and she cradles the mug in her hands. "I missed you, you know? Not even just when I was traveling, but...This year was so...I don't even know what this year was." He sighs and they're walking down the lawn towards the fountain she's always loved but pretended to hate. "It felt like a filler year. Like, a really, really dramatic, ridiculous filler year."
She laughs quietly and looks over at him. "Is that your way of saying you want next year to be better?"
"I don't know. I guess, yeah."
"And that..." She pauses, takes a breath and looks straight ahead. "That somehow starts with spending my birthday in the Hamptons and bringing me pretty things from Peru?"
His fingers slide along the small of her back until he's got his arm around her waist and she's forced to lean against him a bit. She loves that. She can smell his deodorant and his...There's something she can't place. It's not aftershave, because he hasn't shaved. It's something new, something she's never smelled on him before. She wants to find out what it is. She just really hates not knowing things about him.
"It really can't hurt, can it?" he says after a moment, digging his fingers into her side and laughing when she squirms. "We're good, you know?"
"Yeah."
"Things are always weird when we're not really talking, for whatever reason." She just thinks that when they are talking, they're both reminded of how easy things are between them. Even right now, they just seem to naturally gravitate to one another. She can't remember why that's supposed to be a bad thing. "Why are you so quiet?"
"I'm not." She laughs when she realizes she can't really deny it. "I'm glad you're here."
"Yeah?" He asks, letting his arm slip away and then taking her hand instead. "Wanna strip down and get into the fountain?"
"Nate!" she squeals, shoving him away. Once, when they were kids, they did that very thing, stripped down into their underwear and jumped into the fountain when one of Serena's relatives was having a wedding reception here on the lawn. They got into so much trouble for that. "No."
"Come on," he laughs. "There's no one around right now." She shakes her head as she smiles, and turns to walk back to the house, but he tugs on the hand he's still holding and says, "Hey."
"What?" she asks when they're face to face again.
He just grins and pulls her into a hug so tight and so familiar it forces her to close her eyes. She can feel his heart pounding and she knows hers is doing the same as he tangles his fingers in the end of her ponytail.
"Can I stay all summer?" he asks, more quietly than he has to, even though his lips are right next to her ear. Touching it, actually.
He doesn't have to ask, and he probably understands that, so she's not going to answer. She just slides her hands up his back and takes a deep breath.
She can't remember when she dropped the empty coffee mug, but Nate picks it up and holds it as they walk back to the house, his arm draped around her shoulder, and talk about her new found passion for pastries.