Roadmaps: Ch 1: Nate
Still uploading from FF.Net
My first multi-chapter fic.
SPOILERS: Mid-season 2 then goes AU from there.
SUMMARY: You might have stopped believing in fairytales but you did always cast Nate as Prince Charming for a reason.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me.
You hurt so bad, but it’s ok; he’s aloe vera.
You love him as one loves a foreign object that they’ve seen all their life. You love him like you love the Eiffel tower, or the Sistine Chapel; something familiar and far superior, yet also distant. You love him like you love Eleanor-something that’s always been there, that you know absolutely but you don’t truly understand.
The irony strikes you almost every day now. It was supposed to be a love story for the ages-you had it all planned out, you guys would be high-school sweethearts and go to the same college and then you’d have three kids, one boy and two girls-it was supposed to be a story of success. You’d always classified the hardships (such as your boyfriend and your best friend’s drunken night together) as mere trials that would bring you to the inevitable happy ending of the perfect fairytale. Never once had you considered what would happen if the shoe didn’t fit.
But it’s okay, because this time it’s like before, only a million times better.
There are no more expectations, no disappointments, no sadness, and no bright, bright future looming overhead. There’s no heat, no passion, no spark, and he only touches you with affection in public places, but that’s okay; you’ve had enough heat to last you a long time, and you’re still recovering from the burns.
He says he loves you two weeks in. You’re walking down Central Park hand in hand and it looks like a scene out the movie that you’ve always wanted your life to be, and nothing like the daytime soap opera that your life has turned into.
“Love you, Blair. Always have, always will.”
His periwinkle blue eyes crinkle around the corners as he smiles down at you, and you remember the last time he said those words and how they sounded infinitely better twisted around and murmured in your ear as you pure heat swirled you around the dance floor.
You smile back and tell him you love too. Then buy a cup of hot chocolate and wrap your hands around the warm Styrofoam instead.
Her heart breaks too but you’re not supposed to care.
You guys run into Vanessa three weeks later. It surprises you since even though you guys don’t run in the same social circles you thought she would have come looking for him judging by the messages she left on his cell phone those first weeks that you found and couldn’t be bothered to delete.
You’re at Lilly’s art show when she taps Nate on his shoulder.
“Hi,” she says, looking at him under her thick, thick eyelashes. Just for a moment, you’re bothered.
She looks at him then, all suddenly with a quick unattractive head jerk (but its Vanessa, and judging by her clothes, attractiveness is not a priority to her), and stares at your boyfriend.
You should be more bothered than you actually are since it looks like your boyfriend is having a ‘moment’ with someone else, but maybe you’re just too drained from having to fight boys off rooftops and suicidal attempts or wipe coke off their noses, because you just can’t bother to break up the moment that’s transpiring right before your eyes.
Finally, Nate lowers his eyes.
“Well, see you guys around,” she murmurs, and then wanders off. You think that you might have seen her wiping her eyes as she walked off; you think briefly that maybe you should walk after her and comfort her, but you’ve been there before and it was no big deal, you survived it, and even if you walked after her you aren’t quite sure of what to say. Besides, you think, you aren’t sure, and you aren’t going to expose yourself to all the diseases that Brooklyn possesses for something that wasn’t a complete certainty.
Being subtle was never the Devil's best trait.
You feel like you’re a step behind everybody all the time, scurrying behind flowing blonde hair or running to catch up with brooding dark figures, and now you’re just tired.
You’re Blair Waldorf, he says, you’re supposed to go down fighting.
He’s grasping for straws now, his dark eyes boring into you, demanding that you choose.
You’re Blair Waldorf, he repeats, desperate now. You’re Blair Waldorf, funny, sassy, smart, amazing brunette with a heart of gold that’s cloaked with darkness. He knows you better than you know yourself. You’re Blair Waldorf, and Blair Waldorf belongs with him.
Then he lunges for you, his hands on either side of your face crushing your skull as if he was afraid that you’d run away. His lips attack yours and you don’t just feel it everywhere on your body, you feel it in your soul. In less than two minutes, you guys fall back onto some strangers bed, and his hands are grabbing at other places than your face-a dance that you are so familiar with, and with him, you’re partner in more than one way.
You jerk upright.
He’s right. You’re Blair Waldorf, and Blair Waldorf belongs with him. But it’s too fast, and you can’t keep up anymore, not even with yourself.
He knows you well.
He can taste the defeat on your lips, and pulls away with a sigh.
“What can I do to fix this?” he whispers to the quiet room.
But you shake your head and tell him nothing. Not because you want him to chase you or to draw out the excruciating pleasure of the game you both love so much, but because he truly can’t do anything.
‘This’ doesn’t need fixing, you realize, you do.
So you stand up, straighten the wrinkles out of your dress, and you tell Chuck Bass goodbye.
.
You find Nate slumped over on a couch, a full glass of champagne in his hands, and despite the fact that your heart is impersonating a hummingbird at the moment, you have to smirk. Nate’s never liked champagne. He says it burns going down his throat.
Chuck’s never liked champagne either. He doesn’t posses the patience necessary for it. ‘You drink to get drunk, Waldorf,’ he had slurred at her when she carried him home for Nate one night, encompassing her in a cloud of scotch as he leaned in far too close, ‘and champagne doesn’t get you drunk.’
“You ready to go?” Nate asks.
You nod you’re head, then reach for his glass and down it in one gulp, then you take his hand and you two stroll slowly out of the party, side by side. You try to ignore the burning in your throat the whole way out.
The green eyed monster comes out to play, but then again, for you it’s probably never really gone away.
You’re sitting next to Serena when you see the blast about Chuck and Vanessa.
Just moments ago you two were having your frappacino’s (your whipped cream scooped off your cup and dumped unceremoniously on the tall Amazonian blonde’s) and giggling about Dan’s latest mishap (he and Serena were trying the friends thing yet again and you can’t help but wonder while you nod and smile and lend your supporting hand, just how long it’ll last this time before she comes to you with stars in her eyes and pledging everlasting love and how it’ll be different this time-she swears, she can feel it) when your phones vibrate against your thighs and you’re welcomed with the picture of a sheepish looking Vanessa fleeing from the Plaza with her horrible Bohemian-that-was-mauled-by-a-wild-grizzly hair in even further disarray.
Serena swears low under her breath then looks up at you, her big blue eyes anxious, waiting for a Waldorf fir or at least a promise of social destruction.
You can feel your heart clench and you are momentarily tempted to give in and give your best friend what she’s waiting for but you swallow the acidic bile that’s gathering in your throat and hope that it’ll burn away all the remaining butterflies.
Then you smile, sip at your coffee and prompt Serena to continue with her story.
Serena looks at you, bewildered.
“B…”
“I’m fine,” you cut her off, because you are fine, really you are, but even ‘fine’ can not deal with the slight heart attack you are having right now. “So then what did Dan do?”
With weary eyes she gives you a glance before launching back into her story and you laugh and gasp and tut at all the right parts and the suspicion in Serena’s eyes slowly melts away.
But five minutes in you start to feel a bit sick, like you had too much Brooklyn in a day.
.
When you finally reach home you begin to cry off your water-proof mascara, but only for a moment when reality, sense, and a strong sense of déjà vu kicks in. You’ve been here before, for almost the same reasons, more than once, and you don’t really want to be here anymore.
Besides, you reason, you’ve got no reason to be upset, you told him that you couldn’t be with him, you told him that you couldn’t play his game anymore, you told him to stop fighting.
But despite this reasoning your heart still breaks a little, because despite your sincere words you had just hoped a lithe that maybe, just maybe, he’d stick by you through your darkest thoughts, instead of giving up and forgetting you for whore after whore (yes, you admit, you know about Elle, the blonde bitch-and you thought brunettes where supposed to be his thing). He’s supposed to fight for you, just like you fought for him. Then in a sudden moment of self-love that are proclaimed to be the Holy Grail for someone like you by your half-wit therapist, it hits you.
You deserve someone that will never stop fighting for you.
With a sigh, you pick yourself up, reapply your makeup, and then move on.
You might have outgrown fairytales, but you did always cast Nate as Prince Charming for a reason.
You’re there for each other during important things.
In fact, you were sitting right there, on his sunny yellow bed covers watching him as he paced around the room, trying to decide if he should let Grandfather pay hi sway into Princeton. You’re there to remind him about ‘legacy’ and to list off the most important and influential Vanderbilt’s, which you’ve had committed to memory since you were ten, and to nod when he rants on an don about being his own person, not being shackled to his family name, and dignity and integrity. When he’s done muttering to himself, you’re there to quietly ask him, what happens now?
And you’re there to hold his hand as he calls Grandfather and quietly defends himself; assuring him with the gentle squeeze of your hand when he falters, that he can do it-you believe in him. And when he’s done, you’re there to softly tell him that you’re proud of him.
Your there to see ht boy you’ve always loved act like the man that you knew he could be.
.
He’s there for you too.
Harold comes during mid-April. He smiles at you a little, but he grins at Nate.
You see the look in his eyes, it’s like he recognizes you a little again, that he’s just a bit proud of you, and you can’t help grinning a little wilder and puffing out your chest a bit, because even though it’s sick and twisted and just plain wrong for a father to accept you for your choice of boyfriend, you can’t help but be just a little bit happier.
Nate’s a perfect gentleman throughout the duration of Harold’s stay.
Of course, Nate’s always been a perfect gentleman, parents or no parents.
He holds the door open for you, then Harold, to slip into his shiny silver car. He laughs at Harold’s jokes, plays racquet sports with Harold and only beats him by an appropriate two points, and one night he accompanied you to your father’s hotel room and the two spend the whole night trading embarrassing stories of your childhood.
When your father leaves, he beams at you, and you can almost imagine that he’s forgiven you.
Oh, how much things have changed.
Nate decides to throw you a birthday party since he missed you last one, he explains sheepishly.
But just, he interjects, for the two of you, since he’s no good at planning parties.
You nod, happily agreeing with the idea because you just can’t seem to muster up the energy to put on your party clothes and your hostess smile anymore. You do have the energy, however, to pick up the phone and dial Serena’s number to make sure that this wouldn’t be some misguided attempt of a surprise party. She assures you that it’s not, and that he’s going to get you a necklace from Cartier’s. Your jaw clenches slightly, and your grip tightens on the phone, before asking Serena to suggest a bracelet instead, because you needed one desperately.
On the day of your pseudo-birthday Nate comes over, smiling happily, bringing with him a small cake and a (to your relief) a medium sized velvet box. He kisses you on the cheek, presents you with your token (the tasteful diamond bracelet you had blatantly ogled the last time you went shopping with Serena) and you two snuggle down into the couch and you watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s while he reads the Sports Illustrated he brought with him.
It’s perfect, despite Nate’s slight snickering as Holly Golightly screamed ‘cat’ over and over again in the rain, and when it’s over you settle back into his arms and he sets away his magazine. You begin to talk about romance, about what you guys were like when young, but with college and the future looming so close you guys can’t help but change the subject to something future-related. You talk about what you guys had wanted to be when you grew up, how you had thought your lives would turn out, and you can’t help but mist up a little bit, and tell him that you’d always assumed you would have Yale. He pats your head, and holds you closer.
Suddenly he blurts out, “Do you remember that time I told you what you wanted to be when you grew up?”
And you stare at him, slightly peeved, because that was just like Nate, not offering any specifics and conveniently forgetting that he’d asked her that question several times each year during the six years that they had officially dated.
He smiles guiltily and rubs the back of his head as he continues, “You were about nine, and we were at my house. You had come over to because you had just watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s the other day, and you were so excited because you wanted to share what you ‘felt was the most superb cinematic piece of art that you had ever had the pleasure of viewing.’ I remember those were your exact words because I had to look up half of them in the dictionary after you’d hung up.”
Nate chuckles.
“And midway through the film you were gazing starry eyed at the screen when you noticed that I was dozing off in the background and you’d slapped me awake and told me to watch and be riveted. But I just couldn’t stay awake, so to distract you, and to keep me from falling asleep again, I started to ask you questions, like your favorite color and your favorite season. Then I asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, and you rolled your eyes at me and told me, ‘duh Nate, I want to be your wife,’ and then you’d turned back to the screen.’
Nate smiles at you and you smile back.
You spend the rest of the night talking about how thing used to be when you had planned to be Mrs. Archibald, a successful lawyer who graduated summa cum laude from Yale, and mother of three charming children.
You tell him that you can still see them; your perfect children. Your eldest would be a boy with dark brown hair and he’d be the class clown, a joker and a slacker (but only on the surface-he would actually have a perfect GPA), but he’d have a heart of gold and he’d protect his sisters no matter what.
“But Blair,” Nate asks, “I thought you only wanted a little girl.”
Oh. Yeah.
It’s the end and it’s all wrong but you can’t help but feeling that maybe you’re doing it right for the first time.
It doesn’t go quite as far as planned this time; but almost.
You make it all the way until the end of senior year, graduating as Prom King and Queen, and will into the summer.
This time it doesn’t end with tears and screaming, or quiet trembling rage; instead it ends with silent smiles and a promise to stay together forever, just in a different way than what you had planned at twelve. Then bagels and some coffee follows to wash away the slight taste of remorse that lingers in your mouths, which, this time, surprisingly, you don’t feel the need to regurgitate.
It’s not the true love that you’ve always dreamed of, but you can’t help but think that it feels a lot better this way.