be my heater, be my lover (4/6)
Dan/Nate/Serena. All variations thereof. Set post s1. AU.
6300 words. R.
Summary: Serena's never been good at figuring herself out, but she thought she was better at it than this.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Note: Wow, sorry this took aaaages. It's because it's a Serena chapter and she is still so hard for me to write. At least it's not short?
This fic continues to be sex strung together with moping. Also I have no sense of time so this spans the longest three months in history.
Serena expects that Dan will stop sleeping with Nate, will be her boyfriend again, will come gelato tasting and kiss her in the shelter of someone's doorway. She expects things to go back to how they were, but you'd think she'd have learned about expectations by now.
She sees them again, on purpose, going by Nate's just to check. She sees them in the pool like she had before and she wonders at them being so daringly public all the time. Asking to get caught.
It's furious, the way they kiss. Nate must leave marks all over Dan.
Serena thought it would be over by now.
Dan comes in through her window. She's getting a lot of use out of it lately.
Part of her wants to be a bitch, raise her eyebrows and say playing both sides for as long as you can, huh? But she's not that kind of girl. Serena doesn't say exactly what's on her mind, as cutting as possible, not unless her back's against the wall.
Serena's tried to be another kind of girl before but she finds it never sticks.
Part of her just wants to kiss him. She smiles. "Good morning."
Dan smiles too, warmly. "Morning." Then he's toeing off his shoes and lifting her blankets, slipping into the warm space beside her. She buries her face in his neck, the smell of him – beachy, sand and saltwater, and underneath that his coffee-and-ink Dan scent, and underneath that Nate. Nate's shampoo. The cologne he accepts from his mother and wears without bothering to like it or dislike it. And, of course, weed. Something she'd know anywhere. She doesn't know how to feel about smelling Nate on Dan – she's kept them on opposite sides of her brain for so long and here they are, crashing together in the strangest and most mundane of places. Dan smells like Nate now.
Quietly, she says, "You were with Nate."
Dan clears his throat, pulls back slightly, and says, "Yes."
When she doesn't say anything else, Dan nudges into a kiss (and she can taste Nate there too, though Nate's taste isn't something she's supposed to be able to place) that Serena gratefully returns. His hand finds her leg, grasps the tender underside of her knee, slips up the inside of her thigh; he kisses her cheeks, grins down at her. "Were you expecting me?"
"Nope," Serena says, parting her legs to urge his hand along.
Dan's other hand strokes down her back. "So you just woke up, got out of bed, brushed your teeth, and put on lip gloss for no one?"
Hoping isn't expecting, she thinks. "You don't know what I do without you," she says instead with a small teasing smile. "I could have all kinds of boys climbing in my window."
"Don't I believe it." The familiar jealousy is gone from his voice. His fingers (just slightly wet, from her) slide over her stomach and up between her breasts, pushing up her nightgown as he goes so it's gathered above her chest. His hand is all warm pressure but the rest of her exposed skin prickles against the air conditioning's chill. He cups her breast, thumbs a nipple, lowers his mouth to it. She can feel him, hips snug against her thigh, getting hard.
She tugs sharply on his hair to get him to kiss her again, mouth open, trails fingertips down his bare arms. She realizes she's never spent a summer with Dan, doesn't know what that would be like.
"What do you do together?" she asks, before she can stop herself. Dan lifts his head from where he'd been nuzzling her neck to stare at her.
"Me and –?" Dan shifts against her a little impatiently; she's not even sure he realizes he does it, which makes her smile. "I don't know. Stuff. Driving, sailing, movies. You know, the usual."
She'd expected him to say something more x-rated than that, possibly with a cheeky little grin on his face. She frowns. All of that sounds so normal, like friends or…boyfriends. "That's it?"
"I'm sorry," he says, amused. "Did you want a play by play?"
Serena pouts, playfully pushing him. "Not a moment by moment one, no."
He studies her face, brow furrowed but half-smiling. Then he realizes. "Oh my god," he laughs, "You want to know about the sex."
She pushes again, harder. "Shut up, I do not."
"You do," Dan says. "You want me to tell you all about the gay sex."
Serena neither confirms or denies this, wrinkling her nose and asking, "Is it…different?"
Dan takes a moment to think before saying, "Yes."
She tilts her head. "Better?"
He hesitates and she can tell he feels trapped by the question. Good. "It's just different."
Her fingers settle on the small of his back, playing with the hem of his shirt. She pulls it up, over his head, and tosses it aside. "How?"
"Different parts," Dan says vaguely, rolling his eyes. He bends to kiss her but Serena pulls back.
"Was it something you always…" she starts, trailing off. It's something that's been kicking around in her mind – what new adjective does she have to apply to Dan? Gay? Bisexual? Questioning? She read all of Eric's pamphlets at the Ostroff Center, Serena knows every letter in the acronym.
He bites his lip and doesn't answer at first. She thinks he's just going to leave the half-question there when he says softly, "I think…maybe." Softer still, "I really don't know."
Serena just nods, tilting up for a kiss. They just kiss for a while then; Serena gets him out of his clothes, finds all his familiar spots again. She could probably tell him things that would make him feel better, how she and Blair used to play boyfriend-girlfriend when they were younger, make him laugh, turn him on.
She doesn't, though. She's not sure why.
"Sometimes it's just like this," he says, surprising her. His hips are in the cradle of hers; they move together, slow but building. He holds himself above her, arms tense. "Not exactly like this," he corrects, but she knows what he means, knows what to picture. She puts Nate on top in her head, though, and Dan where she is, fingers digging into Nate's lower back like hers are doing to Dan's.
She rocks her hips and watches his eyes go glassy with distraction.
"Mostly we –" Dan's breathing is quicker and they kiss again. "He does this thing – God, this thing with his mouth –"
Serena shoves Dan over onto his back and is on him immediately, sinks down onto him as her nightgown falls back over her. Dan catches a strap and tugs, gets only the curve of the top of her breast for his trouble. She fumbles, her hands on his chest to give herself something to push off of as he grasps her hips.
"Dan," she sighs, means more.
Dan's flushed all down his neck, faint red dusting his cheekbones. "I like it when –" He watches her circle her nipple with her fingers, forgets whatever he was going to say.
"Tell me," Serena murmurs.
Dan sits up, arms encircling her, and mumbles into the skin of her collarbone, clearly embarrassed. "When he's in my mouth," Dan says. There's a stutter in their rhythm; already Dan's coming apart. "And his eyes are open but he's not – he's not really seeing anything, and they're so blue –"
Serena grips his hair in fistfuls. It's longer now; she likes it.
"He doesn't even realize," Dan goes on, almost more to himself, a stream of mutterings, "what he looks like when he –"
Serena was too drunk to remember so she makes it up, puts a little crease between Nate's eyebrows and tightens his jaw. Adds in what she gathered from eavesdropping: Nate biting his lip, the arch of his shoulders. He wouldn't know what he looks like, would he? He never has.
She holds the picture of Nate behind her eyes as she comes.
When Dan falls asleep Serena notices the tiny little purple-red marks scattered across his collarbone, some fading. She knows without having to ask that Nate put them there and she finds herself pressing her mouth to each one.
I let him do anything, Dan said, face tucked against her throat and voice barely audible as they shivered together through aftershocks. His flush was most definitely embarrassment. I let him do whatever he wants to me, like Dan had no choice in the matter. Helpless in the face of what he wants.
Serena knows what that's like.
"I don't even really like him," Blair says, leaning over into Serena's mirror to dab concealer over her hickey. "I mean, he's a barista in a coffee shop, what kind of job is that for an adult? At least he doesn't attend a completely embarrassing university, although who goes to New Jersey for college if they can avoid it?"
Serena smiles faintly. "You seem like you're having fun, Blair."
Blair turns to grin at her. "Some." Then, pointedly, "Unlike you."
"What? I'm having a really nice time this summer."
"No you're not," Blair says bluntly. "You've been in mourning all summer long and it's getting depressing. It's not like you busted a custom Giuseppe Zanotti or something, you can get another Dan Humphrey."
Serena sighs. "Blair, I don't want to talk about him."
"What did I do when that horrific mistake abandoned me in Italy?" Blair continues, raising an eyebrow. "I cried about it and went on a calorie overload and then I got myself together and put it behind me."
Serena makes a frustrated little noise. "You can't compare what I had with Dan to whatever that was with Chuck."
Blair frowns. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Dan was my boyfriend and I loved him," Serena says. Love him, her brain corrects. "That's not the same as you sneaking around with Chuck for a few weeks."
"What, because whatever you're going through is more important?" Blair crosses her arms. "Though you always act like that. Serena goes into crisis and everyone has to rally, but god forbid someone else be going through something."
"That's not what I'm saying at all," Serena says, sitting up.
"You don't have to. You clearly have no interest whenever I talk about Peter –"
"I flew out to Tuscany immediately when you called me –"
"You just sit around here moping all day long –"
"I'm allowed to be sad about what happened –"
A horn honks outside, cutting through their argument. Peter.
"Whatever," Blair says, lips pursed. "I'm going out." She snatches up her purse. "Don't wait up."
"I wasn't planning on it," Serena says.
Blair doesn't get it. Serena's not even sure how she could explain it – feeling so lost for so long, being the mess, the drunk, the wild one. The basket case. Never holding onto anything. Never knowing what she wanted or even who she was, or if anything would ever belong to her. Blair's always so sure; she has been since the day they met. Blair always had dreams and goals and plans. Serena never did.
It's not all that complex, though: Serena just misses Dan so much it hurts. She wants to fix everything, take back the entire Georgina debacle, rewind her life and erase her mistakes – though she's never been able to do that before, so why would now be any different?
Dan used to catch her hands and kiss them, not for any reason. He used to wait at her locker between classes. He used to tip piles of books onto her bed and upload all kinds of music to her iPod; she regrets not reading or listening to any of it now. He didn't kiss her carefully or sweetly like she expected him to. He wasn't who she thought he'd be and she liked that. She liked learning him. She liked how he looked at her, like she had all this potential to fulfill, like he believed in her.
Serena just wants it all back.
Serena does wait up for Blair, wrapped up in a blanket in the living room, but she must fall asleep before Blair comes in. Serena wakes up to see the cable box flashing three thirty and Blair's door pointedly locked.
She lies on her bed sleeplessly for another twenty minutes before giving up, shimmying down the trellis outside her window and beelining for the beach. If nothing else it'll soothe her, watching the waves crash in and withdraw again, the steady rhythm of them.
She sits right in the sand, eschewing a blanket, and wishes she'd brought a sweater. She has her iPod playing one of Dan's playlists, rough soulful music she's never heard before.
When Serena blinks awake again it's to burning bright sunshine and Nate staring down at her. He must have been running because he's in shorts and a tank top, all sweaty with his hair pushed back off his forehead. He's got one earbud in, the other hanging around his neck. He watches her with a worried little pucker between his eyebrows.
They haven't been alone together since that awful kiss in her room, when Nate was looking for something that had nothing to do with her. Revenge, maybe.
"Hey there," he says easily. "Cece kick you out?"
The comment startles a smile out of her. "No, I kicked myself out."
"That doesn't make sense," Nate says, smiling too.
"I just woke up, give me twenty minutes," she protests, sitting up and running a hand through her sandy hair. She needs a toothbrush desperately. And a shower. She looks up at Nate, squinting against the light. "What time is it?"
"Seven," Nate says. "Want me to walk you home?"
Serena sucks her lower lip into her mouth, hesitating, and then nods. He helps her to her feet, reaching out seemingly without thinking to brush some sand off the side of her face. Then he says, "I'm sorry." His hand lingers a moment longer, just touching her cheek, before he drops it. "About the other night. You know."
Serena nods. "I know you were…upset."
Nate frowns a bit but doesn't deny it this time. "Are you and he still…?"
She nods again, slowly. "Yes." She doesn't bother asking about him and Dan because, of course, she already knows.
He doesn't respond or react, not even an imperceptible sigh. He just gives her a nudge and starts for the street. Serena follows. They're a block from her house when she curls her fingers around his wrist, says, "Can we go to yours instead?"
Nate doesn't ask why; he probably knows her well enough not to.
"I thought Dan was with you," he admits when they get up to his room. "He wasn't here when I woke up."
"No," Serena says. "I haven't seen him for a few days." Dan's been scarce since the other morning. She thinks maybe he felt he said too much.
She sits gingerly in Nate's desk chair, avoiding the bed and its mussed sheets entirely. She's able to spot Dan's things mixed in with Nate's around the room – his books, his computer, his clothes, mugs half-full of old coffee. It strikes her just how enmeshed they've become. It's not something that'll be so easily untangled, she realizes now, by her mere presence. It's something that grew in her absence, like weeds.
Serena murmurs, "What are we going to do?"
What's she'd really like to do is ask Blair, but Serena's not sure how she'd phrase that one. My ex-boyfriend is fucking your ex-boyfriend, what do I do?
Though Serena couldn't ask even if she figured out the proper phrasing. Blair probably isn't speaking to her.
"Not a clue," Nate admits.
Serena almost laughs but then her eyes prickle and she thinks she might cry instead. She doesn't, but it must show on her face because Nate crosses to her, dropping down so they're eye level.
"Hey," he says gently, his hands on her knees. "Look, it's – we'll figure something out –"
"Will we?" she says doubtfully. "Did you and Blair and me figure something out?" They did, ultimately, she supposes – everyone ending up a little bit lonelier. A grade school friendship fractured beyond repair.
As though scalded, Nate pulls his hands away. "That's not the same."
"How?" Serena asks. She trains her gaze on her shoes, simple beige canvas sneakers that Blair threatens to throw out every summer. Serena likes them though. "How is it not the same?"
"Because Dan didn't cheat on you with me."
"He sure didn't wait very long," Serena says.
Nate is standing again by now, keeping distance between them again. The bed is between them again – and really, isn't that the heart of it. "You don't know how it happened."
"Then tell me."
"He missed you," Nate says. His back is to her, making him unreadable. "He talked about you all the time. We talked about you. And then it just kind of…"
"Just kind of happened?" she supplies, eyebrow raised. "How does something like that 'just happen,' Nate?"
"I don't know, Serena," he says curtly, turning. "You've never slept with someone without planning to?"
She sucks in a quick breath. "That's not fair."
Nate looks like he might say something else but doesn't; he just shrugs one shoulder, nonplussed. Serena gets it, though: no part of this is fair.
Serena's not done with Dan, she knows that, but apparently Nate's only starting with him.
The end of summer is creeping up on them; the countdown to the start of school is beginning. Serena is supposed to go home in two weeks, meet her mother and Eric fresh from their trip, and get herself together before her senior year begins. She's dreading it, though, dreading a home where Bart Bass and Chuck are semi-permanent fixtures, dreading applying to colleges, dreading the hallways and the gossip. She'd like to stay firmly in this summer twilight, right on the precipice of autumn, for as long as possible.
She's lonely, though, and there's nothing Serena hates more than feeling so impossibly lonely.
Blair was right, she should have founds some townie fling of her own. Only disposable boys have completely lost their appeal for Serena and she has no interest in keeping a new one around long term.
"I worry about you, dear," her grandmother says over gin and breakfast. "You haven't been yourself lately."
"I'm fine, Grandma," Serena repeats, poking listlessly at her oatmeal.
"You should see your friends more," Cece insists. "I know it would make you feel better, darling."
When Serena's alone with Dan – tucked up in his arms, carding her fingers aimlessly through his hair (she'd never realized it was so curly, it had been too short to tell before) – she tries to find a way to tell him how she feels. Only she can't; she cringes internally at the thought of sounding so vulnerable.
When she's alone with Nate – rarely, and usually only when they're at the beach – she finds she can't speak either, but only because she knows Nate has no answers and will make no admissions.
Generally they avoid being in the same place at the same time, the three of them, but it happens. Anne and Cece corral them into the same garden parties, poolside farewell-to-summer soirees. When they are together, it's obvious how uneasy she makes Dan and Nate. She remembers that day at the beach before they knew she knew, how they held their little secret between them with a kind of playfulness.
Now they don't. They don't touch, or joke; they barely hold eye contact.
The last party of the season is usually at the Macintoshes,' usually themed. Usually Serena and Blair go in coordinating costumes and drink all the champagne they can stand, but this year no luck. Blair is off pretending to break up with Peter and Serena is sipping champagne alone.
She sees the boys across the way: Dan fidgeting endlessly with his tie and Nate turning a slow, amused smile Dan's way. Nate touches Dan's hand lightly, stilling him.
Impetuously, Serena sets down her flute and gathers her skirt, darts across the lawn towards them. On her way she steals a bottle of wine from the bar; it doesn't even require any sweet talking, there's just too much around for anyone to notice when it's gone.
"Hi," she says, a little breathless, when she stops in front of them. "This party sucks."
Dan frowns uncertainly but Nate gives her a small smile. "It does."
She looks at Dan, the too-tight knot of his tie. "Do you want to leave?"
Dan and Nate exchange a glance and Dan says, "Alright."
They weave away from the crowd of middle-aged women in candy pastel summer dresses and men in clean beige suits, through the greenery that rings the property, and choose a grassy clearing to sit in. Serena hands Nate the bottle and drops right onto the grass, heedless of her pale blue skirt and stains.
"You didn't get a corkscrew," Dan says, with one of those frowny little looks of his that's so stupidly normal.
Serena makes a face at him, tells him to figure it out then.
She watches, amused and intrigued, as the two of them attempt to do just that. There are some aborted attempts with keys before they discover the Swiss army knife in Nate's pocket, courtesy of Grandfather. They laugh when they get the cork free, grinning widely at each other, and then they remember Serena and duck their heads in embarrassment.
"It's okay," she says, a little haltingly. Then she holds out her hands, smoothing over the awkwardness. "I need alcohol."
"You should have brought tequila or something," Nate says, wrinkling his nose at the label before giving the bottle to her.
"This isn't Cabo San Lucas, it's a garden party," Dan says.
It's so random Serena starts laughing, and Nate follows; he touches Dan's cheek, condescending and affectionate, and says, "You have so much to learn."
Dan's gaze slides towards Serena momentarily, questioningly. She just hands him the bottle.
They make small talk, uncomfortable only during the pauses of their sentences. They drink when silence stretches too long. It's a strange little picnic, hidden by the leafy trees, surrounded by the smell of fresh summer air and distant perfumes. The wine makes them less nervous around each other, at least. Serena can see the tight line of Dan's spine easing.
As Nate takes a sip, Dan steals the bottle away, spattering Nate's shirt with droplets; startled, Nate swallows and then laughs. He gives Dan a little push and steals the bottle back, holding it just out of reach. Dan has to lean across Nate to grab for it, which he does to no avail, and it looks for a minute like they might kiss.
They must realize it too, because Nate lets Dan have the wine and they sort of pull back into themselves self-consciously. Serena wets her lips, tastes wine and lipstick; Nate's mouth is stained ever so slightly pink.
Serena hasn't gotten drunk off wine since she was twelve so she has no excuse for saying, "Kiss."
They're both staring at her, but Nate recovers first. "What?"
"Kiss," she says, voice soft and mouth dry. She clears her throat. "You want to, don't you?"
"Serena," Dan starts.
"You don't have to," she says. She can't help her curiosity. "But if you wanted to…"
They trade another look, which makes Serena prickle with something like exasperation – why do they have to check with each other before they say anything? – but then Dan leans in and Nate tilts Dan's face up with a touch to his jaw and they kiss. Dan's mouth opens almost immediately and it makes Nate smile into the kiss before deepening it.
Serena doesn't know how to react now that she's asked and they've obliged – if something specific should be showing on her face. She's not sure she could control it if that's the case. She's pretty sure she's just staring, eyes wide. She bites her lip, shifts so she's sitting up on her knees, sets her hands on her thighs.
They part rather abruptly, maybe realizing what they look like. Nate's cheeks are flushed and Dan fumbles again with his tie, finally pulling it free.
Serena says, "You didn't have to stop."
Dan studies her. He looks flustered but there's determination when he asks, "What do you want?"
Serena's never known how to answer that but gives him something like the truth, or at least as much of it as she can grasp. "I want to know," she says. "What it's like."
Dan's eyes narrow a little, curiously; maybe he's thinking of the last time they were in bed together. You want to know about the sex.
Nate clears his throat, interjects, "What, like watch?"
The talking frustrates her; her tongue is tied. She doesn't know what to say and she's sick of trying to figure out what to say. This should be easier than it is. She looks from one boy to the other, two pairs of questioning eyes. Action is easier. It's clear.
Serena places both hands flat in the warm scratchy grass and leans over, kisses Nate once on the mouth. His lips part in surprise but she's already pulling back, turning to kiss Dan too.
"Show me," she says.
Nate's mouth is on Dan – Nate's mouth is on Dan's cock, Nate is turning Dan into a wreck.
Dan's shirt is mostly unbuttoned but still hanging from his shoulders. His stomach dips as his hips press up, twisting under Nate. His fingers twitch convulsively in Nate's hair until Nate reaches up to catch Dan's hand in his own, hold it down against the grass. Dan's breathing is rough, punctuated with little gasps.
Dan liked that, Serena thinks. Having his hands held down.
Nate's mouth slides over Dan so smoothly, his movements so sure they're almost authoritative, pulling off only to press his mouth to Dan's hipbones, along his stomach. Nate licks his lips (flushed a darker pink than before) before taking Dan between them again.
Serena's somewhere between panicked and turned on. Her hands are tangled in her skirt but she can't yet make herself move beneath it, despite the growing heat between her legs becoming harder to ignore. Her knees part a little, hips shift against nothing.
She's never seen either of them like this before – the tight slow-burning tension in Dan's body, Nate's teasing confidence.
"Kiss me," Dan says suddenly. She's not sure which one of them he's talking to but Nate is already moving up to capture his mouth, hand taking over. Dan kisses Nate hard, tugging at Nate's hair, brow creased almost in distress.
"Come on," Nate says, hardly audible, his hand around Dan's dick moving quicker, "You can do it, come on –"
Serena bites her lip too hard and feels the skin heat up as blood rushes to the spot. "Dan," she murmurs, softly, a moan or a whimper, maybe both.
"Come on," Nate says again, covers Dan's mouth with his to swallow his gasps.
Dan comes with every line in his body tense and then goes boneless, stirring only slightly to return Nate's kiss, both of their breathing quick and not yet under control.
Serena says his name again and he meets her eyes, his own hazy and dark. "You could –" she starts and then looks at Nate, worries the bitten spot on her lip.
Without question, or even much thought, Dan complies and tips Nate onto his back. He settles in Nate's lap, bends down for a slow kiss before whispering something Serena doesn't hear. Nate nods slightly in response and then they kiss again.
Serena frowns a little but then her attention is drawn to the path of Dan's hand, trailing over Nate's stomach to press firmly between his legs, tracing the shape of Nate's cock before finding the zipper of his pants without looking. Dan's mouth follows the same path, dropping unhurried kisses along Nate's chest before reaching the waistband of his boxers.
Dan glances up at Nate, tiny smile on his face, before moving lower. He wraps a hand around Nate and closes his lips around just the head of Nate's cock at first; Nate moans and Serena finally slips a hand under her skirt, echoes his sound. She's shivery and breathy as she watches Dan's cheeks hollow absurdly, watching him wring groans from Nate; she knows firsthand how good he is with his mouth.
Nate's eyes are open but he's not looking at anything, except maybe the canopy of leaves above, the odd slice of sky. His eyes flutter closed whenever he moans, though, whenever Dan must do something particularly good.
Serena presses her fingers inside herself but it's not – it's not enough, not nearly enough.
She inches forward until her knees brush Nate's side. That catches his attention. His unfocused eyes focus on her, eyebrows drawn together inquisitively, and, rather than ask for it aloud, Serena bends to press a quick kiss to his mouth. Almost immediately Nate is leaning up, grasping a handful of her hair, and kissing back.
It's not like the kiss in her room, or the one she only half-remembers from a year ago. It's another kind of kiss, a permitted kiss, a kiss she can enjoy without feeling guilty, a hungry kiss.
She can taste Dan on him too.
Nate pulls away on a groan, falling back against the ground. Serena looks back as Dan, so intent in his task, and smoothes her hand through his hair, tugs him off. He's breathing hard through his nose; he licks his lips, which are slightly puffy, like they've been kissed for hours.
"I want to –" Serena swallows.
"What?" Dan asks.
Her hands tighten in her skirt and she fidgets, says, "Do you have a condom?"
A look passes between the three of them, surprise almost funny on the boys' faces, before Dan is getting out his wallet, retrieving the little foil packet. He gets it open with fumbling fingers and puts it on Nate, stroking a few times for good measure.
So strange. Four months ago Dan would have had a panic attack at the thought of her sleeping with Nate, let alone doing it right in front of him.
Serena nudges Dan's hand aside and sits astride Nate's thighs, taking a little nervous breath before rising up and taking hold of him, sinking down. She can't control the sound that escapes her, rocking down, half-hoping Dan will start touching her too but too preoccupied to tell him to.
This is – this is bizarre, being with Nate. Nate is inside her and it's – it's weird, it's something she's not supposed to be doing. Everything she's ever had with Nate is something she's not supposed to have because of Blair, because he loved Blair – only he's not Blair's boyfriend anymore. He's nobody's boyfriend, so this is maybe the only time she's allowed to do this, to feel Nate inside her and under her fingertips, with his grinning blue eyes looking up at her –
Then he turns to Dan and, tightly gripping Dan's curls, pulls him into a hard kiss.
Serena feels very alone suddenly. It's like she's back to watching them and touching herself, like it doesn't matter if she's there or not.
As soon as they separate Serena kisses Nate, presses herself against him as much as she can, arms around his neck. Her hair falls around their faces, creating a little cocoon. She can feel Nate smile against her lips and he gives her a playful soft nip.
Dan kisses her shoulder and rests his hand on her lower back before running up her spine to release the catch on her dress. It's a halter; once released the front panel pools at her hips, leaves her naked from the waist up.
Serena sighs into his mouth as he kisses her, her head angling back as his lips move down to her collarbone and then over the curve of her breast. Nate's short fingernails bite into her thighs. Dan's hand is finding it's way under her skirt, between her legs, touching her and Nate before circling her clit, over and over.
Serena comes with a hard shudder that takes her by surprise – it felt like the spiraling hadn't finished yet, like she was still building towards something when it hits her, makes her shake. She doesn't know when it hits Nate, if it's at the same time or not, and their hips are still rocking together slightly, gently.
She meant to look at Nate when he came, to see if it matched up to the picture in her head. She'd forgotten to.
When she's finally come down enough to open her eyes it's to see Dan and Nate kissing again, a lazy leisurely kind of kissing with their hands on each other's faces, excluding her entirely.
Serena sighs, a harsh exhalation, and feels nothing but unsettled.
The next day Serena can't quite believe what she did.
What she did sober, no less.
She locks her window and pulls down the shade, keeps her door bolted and pleads cramps any time anyone knocks.
It had been good, right? It felt good. She had an orgasm that made her breathless for minutes afterwards, sent shivers through her blood. She didn't have to be jealous of Dan and Nate because she had been with Dan and Nate, it had been for her and because of her, it was what she asked for.
Serena doesn’t feel good though.
Eventually Dan knocks on her door, polite as anything. She turns him away the first time but then he's back twenty minutes later. "I have a sister," he says. "So I don't fear your lady issues. If you're not, you know, lying because you're embarrassed. In any case, I brought you Midol."
Serena almost wants to laugh. She buries her face in her hands a moment before deciding she might as well face it now, on her turf, and opens the door.
"Hey," he says softly.
Serena sits back on her bed, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "Hi."
Dan doesn't sit, just stands there with his hands in his pockets. "How are you doing?"
Serena shrugs.
"Do you want to talk about it?" When she doesn't say anything, he continues, "It was kind of…unexpected, I know we got sort of…uh, and…we probably should've talked about it, uh, more –"
"I feel horrible, Dan," she interrupts. "I was with two people I really cared about and it could have meant something but I just feel horrible."
Dan is at a loss for a moment. She wonders if he'll start rambling again. "I'm sorry, I –"
She tries to keep her voice steady but it comes out too small and uncertain as she asks again, "Are you in love with him?"
Dan opens his mouth, shuts it. "Don't be ridiculous."
"I know what I saw."
"That's not what this is about," Dan says. "That's not – that was what you asked to see. We were doing that for you."
Serena shrugs again, looks away. "You were doing it despite me."
Disbelieving, Dan says, "You asked. You can't just take it back because it didn't go how you thought it would –"
"So you're just fine with this?" she says. "You weren't jealous at all watching me and Nate?"
His jaw clenches. "That's not the point."
"So what is the point?" She sits up. "Why did you come here?"
"I wanted to see how you were," he says tightly. "What happened was a big deal and I wanted to see if you were okay, because I care about you."
She studies him. "Do you love me?"
"You know that I do," he says.
"But not enough to stop sleeping with Nate."
Dan doesn't say anything. Then, "I didn't…I didn't expect you'd to be back so soon, or that we'd…that you would want to get back together."
It hurts, unexpectedly sharply.
"So that gives you free reign to sleep with my friends?" Serena says.
Dan starts shaking his head. "We shouldn't have –"
"I know you shouldn't have," she says.
"No." Dan looks at her. "You and I shouldn't have slept together. The three of us shouldn't have slept together."
Serena stares at the pattern on her sheets, pale green and gold. "I need you to leave."
When he's gone Serena cries for the first time all summer.
The night she tiptoes into Blair's room, crawls under the covers and tucks herself against Blair's side.
"God, S, it's three a.m.," Blair mumbles sleepily, nevertheless turning her face into Serena's hair. "Why are you even up?"
"I can't sleep," Serena says. She rubs at her eyes with one hand; tears keep slipping out at odd moments, she can't stop them. "I'm sorry we fought."
"It's fine," Blair murmurs. "You were PMS-ing."
Serena laughs, an abrupt little sound. "No I wasn't. I've just been miserable for weeks."
"You don't have to explain lashing out to me," Blair says, pushing her sleep mask up and blinking at Serena blearily. "I did practically invent it, after all."
"So you're not still mad?"
Blair shakes her head.
"Good." Serena nudges closer, slipping an arm around Blair.
"Are you okay?"
Serena swallows and nods, doesn't mean it.
Serena's never been good at figuring herself out, but she thought she was better at it than this.
.tbc.
Dan/Nate/Serena. All variations thereof. Set post s1. AU.
6300 words. R.
Summary: Serena's never been good at figuring herself out, but she thought she was better at it than this.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Note: Wow, sorry this took aaaages. It's because it's a Serena chapter and she is still so hard for me to write. At least it's not short?
This fic continues to be sex strung together with moping. Also I have no sense of time so this spans the longest three months in history.
Serena expects that Dan will stop sleeping with Nate, will be her boyfriend again, will come gelato tasting and kiss her in the shelter of someone's doorway. She expects things to go back to how they were, but you'd think she'd have learned about expectations by now.
She sees them again, on purpose, going by Nate's just to check. She sees them in the pool like she had before and she wonders at them being so daringly public all the time. Asking to get caught.
It's furious, the way they kiss. Nate must leave marks all over Dan.
Serena thought it would be over by now.
Dan comes in through her window. She's getting a lot of use out of it lately.
Part of her wants to be a bitch, raise her eyebrows and say playing both sides for as long as you can, huh? But she's not that kind of girl. Serena doesn't say exactly what's on her mind, as cutting as possible, not unless her back's against the wall.
Serena's tried to be another kind of girl before but she finds it never sticks.
Part of her just wants to kiss him. She smiles. "Good morning."
Dan smiles too, warmly. "Morning." Then he's toeing off his shoes and lifting her blankets, slipping into the warm space beside her. She buries her face in his neck, the smell of him – beachy, sand and saltwater, and underneath that his coffee-and-ink Dan scent, and underneath that Nate. Nate's shampoo. The cologne he accepts from his mother and wears without bothering to like it or dislike it. And, of course, weed. Something she'd know anywhere. She doesn't know how to feel about smelling Nate on Dan – she's kept them on opposite sides of her brain for so long and here they are, crashing together in the strangest and most mundane of places. Dan smells like Nate now.
Quietly, she says, "You were with Nate."
Dan clears his throat, pulls back slightly, and says, "Yes."
When she doesn't say anything else, Dan nudges into a kiss (and she can taste Nate there too, though Nate's taste isn't something she's supposed to be able to place) that Serena gratefully returns. His hand finds her leg, grasps the tender underside of her knee, slips up the inside of her thigh; he kisses her cheeks, grins down at her. "Were you expecting me?"
"Nope," Serena says, parting her legs to urge his hand along.
Dan's other hand strokes down her back. "So you just woke up, got out of bed, brushed your teeth, and put on lip gloss for no one?"
Hoping isn't expecting, she thinks. "You don't know what I do without you," she says instead with a small teasing smile. "I could have all kinds of boys climbing in my window."
"Don't I believe it." The familiar jealousy is gone from his voice. His fingers (just slightly wet, from her) slide over her stomach and up between her breasts, pushing up her nightgown as he goes so it's gathered above her chest. His hand is all warm pressure but the rest of her exposed skin prickles against the air conditioning's chill. He cups her breast, thumbs a nipple, lowers his mouth to it. She can feel him, hips snug against her thigh, getting hard.
She tugs sharply on his hair to get him to kiss her again, mouth open, trails fingertips down his bare arms. She realizes she's never spent a summer with Dan, doesn't know what that would be like.
"What do you do together?" she asks, before she can stop herself. Dan lifts his head from where he'd been nuzzling her neck to stare at her.
"Me and –?" Dan shifts against her a little impatiently; she's not even sure he realizes he does it, which makes her smile. "I don't know. Stuff. Driving, sailing, movies. You know, the usual."
She'd expected him to say something more x-rated than that, possibly with a cheeky little grin on his face. She frowns. All of that sounds so normal, like friends or…boyfriends. "That's it?"
"I'm sorry," he says, amused. "Did you want a play by play?"
Serena pouts, playfully pushing him. "Not a moment by moment one, no."
He studies her face, brow furrowed but half-smiling. Then he realizes. "Oh my god," he laughs, "You want to know about the sex."
She pushes again, harder. "Shut up, I do not."
"You do," Dan says. "You want me to tell you all about the gay sex."
Serena neither confirms or denies this, wrinkling her nose and asking, "Is it…different?"
Dan takes a moment to think before saying, "Yes."
She tilts her head. "Better?"
He hesitates and she can tell he feels trapped by the question. Good. "It's just different."
Her fingers settle on the small of his back, playing with the hem of his shirt. She pulls it up, over his head, and tosses it aside. "How?"
"Different parts," Dan says vaguely, rolling his eyes. He bends to kiss her but Serena pulls back.
"Was it something you always…" she starts, trailing off. It's something that's been kicking around in her mind – what new adjective does she have to apply to Dan? Gay? Bisexual? Questioning? She read all of Eric's pamphlets at the Ostroff Center, Serena knows every letter in the acronym.
He bites his lip and doesn't answer at first. She thinks he's just going to leave the half-question there when he says softly, "I think…maybe." Softer still, "I really don't know."
Serena just nods, tilting up for a kiss. They just kiss for a while then; Serena gets him out of his clothes, finds all his familiar spots again. She could probably tell him things that would make him feel better, how she and Blair used to play boyfriend-girlfriend when they were younger, make him laugh, turn him on.
She doesn't, though. She's not sure why.
"Sometimes it's just like this," he says, surprising her. His hips are in the cradle of hers; they move together, slow but building. He holds himself above her, arms tense. "Not exactly like this," he corrects, but she knows what he means, knows what to picture. She puts Nate on top in her head, though, and Dan where she is, fingers digging into Nate's lower back like hers are doing to Dan's.
She rocks her hips and watches his eyes go glassy with distraction.
"Mostly we –" Dan's breathing is quicker and they kiss again. "He does this thing – God, this thing with his mouth –"
Serena shoves Dan over onto his back and is on him immediately, sinks down onto him as her nightgown falls back over her. Dan catches a strap and tugs, gets only the curve of the top of her breast for his trouble. She fumbles, her hands on his chest to give herself something to push off of as he grasps her hips.
"Dan," she sighs, means more.
Dan's flushed all down his neck, faint red dusting his cheekbones. "I like it when –" He watches her circle her nipple with her fingers, forgets whatever he was going to say.
"Tell me," Serena murmurs.
Dan sits up, arms encircling her, and mumbles into the skin of her collarbone, clearly embarrassed. "When he's in my mouth," Dan says. There's a stutter in their rhythm; already Dan's coming apart. "And his eyes are open but he's not – he's not really seeing anything, and they're so blue –"
Serena grips his hair in fistfuls. It's longer now; she likes it.
"He doesn't even realize," Dan goes on, almost more to himself, a stream of mutterings, "what he looks like when he –"
Serena was too drunk to remember so she makes it up, puts a little crease between Nate's eyebrows and tightens his jaw. Adds in what she gathered from eavesdropping: Nate biting his lip, the arch of his shoulders. He wouldn't know what he looks like, would he? He never has.
She holds the picture of Nate behind her eyes as she comes.
When Dan falls asleep Serena notices the tiny little purple-red marks scattered across his collarbone, some fading. She knows without having to ask that Nate put them there and she finds herself pressing her mouth to each one.
I let him do anything, Dan said, face tucked against her throat and voice barely audible as they shivered together through aftershocks. His flush was most definitely embarrassment. I let him do whatever he wants to me, like Dan had no choice in the matter. Helpless in the face of what he wants.
Serena knows what that's like.
"I don't even really like him," Blair says, leaning over into Serena's mirror to dab concealer over her hickey. "I mean, he's a barista in a coffee shop, what kind of job is that for an adult? At least he doesn't attend a completely embarrassing university, although who goes to New Jersey for college if they can avoid it?"
Serena smiles faintly. "You seem like you're having fun, Blair."
Blair turns to grin at her. "Some." Then, pointedly, "Unlike you."
"What? I'm having a really nice time this summer."
"No you're not," Blair says bluntly. "You've been in mourning all summer long and it's getting depressing. It's not like you busted a custom Giuseppe Zanotti or something, you can get another Dan Humphrey."
Serena sighs. "Blair, I don't want to talk about him."
"What did I do when that horrific mistake abandoned me in Italy?" Blair continues, raising an eyebrow. "I cried about it and went on a calorie overload and then I got myself together and put it behind me."
Serena makes a frustrated little noise. "You can't compare what I had with Dan to whatever that was with Chuck."
Blair frowns. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Dan was my boyfriend and I loved him," Serena says. Love him, her brain corrects. "That's not the same as you sneaking around with Chuck for a few weeks."
"What, because whatever you're going through is more important?" Blair crosses her arms. "Though you always act like that. Serena goes into crisis and everyone has to rally, but god forbid someone else be going through something."
"That's not what I'm saying at all," Serena says, sitting up.
"You don't have to. You clearly have no interest whenever I talk about Peter –"
"I flew out to Tuscany immediately when you called me –"
"You just sit around here moping all day long –"
"I'm allowed to be sad about what happened –"
A horn honks outside, cutting through their argument. Peter.
"Whatever," Blair says, lips pursed. "I'm going out." She snatches up her purse. "Don't wait up."
"I wasn't planning on it," Serena says.
Blair doesn't get it. Serena's not even sure how she could explain it – feeling so lost for so long, being the mess, the drunk, the wild one. The basket case. Never holding onto anything. Never knowing what she wanted or even who she was, or if anything would ever belong to her. Blair's always so sure; she has been since the day they met. Blair always had dreams and goals and plans. Serena never did.
It's not all that complex, though: Serena just misses Dan so much it hurts. She wants to fix everything, take back the entire Georgina debacle, rewind her life and erase her mistakes – though she's never been able to do that before, so why would now be any different?
Dan used to catch her hands and kiss them, not for any reason. He used to wait at her locker between classes. He used to tip piles of books onto her bed and upload all kinds of music to her iPod; she regrets not reading or listening to any of it now. He didn't kiss her carefully or sweetly like she expected him to. He wasn't who she thought he'd be and she liked that. She liked learning him. She liked how he looked at her, like she had all this potential to fulfill, like he believed in her.
Serena just wants it all back.
Serena does wait up for Blair, wrapped up in a blanket in the living room, but she must fall asleep before Blair comes in. Serena wakes up to see the cable box flashing three thirty and Blair's door pointedly locked.
She lies on her bed sleeplessly for another twenty minutes before giving up, shimmying down the trellis outside her window and beelining for the beach. If nothing else it'll soothe her, watching the waves crash in and withdraw again, the steady rhythm of them.
She sits right in the sand, eschewing a blanket, and wishes she'd brought a sweater. She has her iPod playing one of Dan's playlists, rough soulful music she's never heard before.
When Serena blinks awake again it's to burning bright sunshine and Nate staring down at her. He must have been running because he's in shorts and a tank top, all sweaty with his hair pushed back off his forehead. He's got one earbud in, the other hanging around his neck. He watches her with a worried little pucker between his eyebrows.
They haven't been alone together since that awful kiss in her room, when Nate was looking for something that had nothing to do with her. Revenge, maybe.
"Hey there," he says easily. "Cece kick you out?"
The comment startles a smile out of her. "No, I kicked myself out."
"That doesn't make sense," Nate says, smiling too.
"I just woke up, give me twenty minutes," she protests, sitting up and running a hand through her sandy hair. She needs a toothbrush desperately. And a shower. She looks up at Nate, squinting against the light. "What time is it?"
"Seven," Nate says. "Want me to walk you home?"
Serena sucks her lower lip into her mouth, hesitating, and then nods. He helps her to her feet, reaching out seemingly without thinking to brush some sand off the side of her face. Then he says, "I'm sorry." His hand lingers a moment longer, just touching her cheek, before he drops it. "About the other night. You know."
Serena nods. "I know you were…upset."
Nate frowns a bit but doesn't deny it this time. "Are you and he still…?"
She nods again, slowly. "Yes." She doesn't bother asking about him and Dan because, of course, she already knows.
He doesn't respond or react, not even an imperceptible sigh. He just gives her a nudge and starts for the street. Serena follows. They're a block from her house when she curls her fingers around his wrist, says, "Can we go to yours instead?"
Nate doesn't ask why; he probably knows her well enough not to.
"I thought Dan was with you," he admits when they get up to his room. "He wasn't here when I woke up."
"No," Serena says. "I haven't seen him for a few days." Dan's been scarce since the other morning. She thinks maybe he felt he said too much.
She sits gingerly in Nate's desk chair, avoiding the bed and its mussed sheets entirely. She's able to spot Dan's things mixed in with Nate's around the room – his books, his computer, his clothes, mugs half-full of old coffee. It strikes her just how enmeshed they've become. It's not something that'll be so easily untangled, she realizes now, by her mere presence. It's something that grew in her absence, like weeds.
Serena murmurs, "What are we going to do?"
What's she'd really like to do is ask Blair, but Serena's not sure how she'd phrase that one. My ex-boyfriend is fucking your ex-boyfriend, what do I do?
Though Serena couldn't ask even if she figured out the proper phrasing. Blair probably isn't speaking to her.
"Not a clue," Nate admits.
Serena almost laughs but then her eyes prickle and she thinks she might cry instead. She doesn't, but it must show on her face because Nate crosses to her, dropping down so they're eye level.
"Hey," he says gently, his hands on her knees. "Look, it's – we'll figure something out –"
"Will we?" she says doubtfully. "Did you and Blair and me figure something out?" They did, ultimately, she supposes – everyone ending up a little bit lonelier. A grade school friendship fractured beyond repair.
As though scalded, Nate pulls his hands away. "That's not the same."
"How?" Serena asks. She trains her gaze on her shoes, simple beige canvas sneakers that Blair threatens to throw out every summer. Serena likes them though. "How is it not the same?"
"Because Dan didn't cheat on you with me."
"He sure didn't wait very long," Serena says.
Nate is standing again by now, keeping distance between them again. The bed is between them again – and really, isn't that the heart of it. "You don't know how it happened."
"Then tell me."
"He missed you," Nate says. His back is to her, making him unreadable. "He talked about you all the time. We talked about you. And then it just kind of…"
"Just kind of happened?" she supplies, eyebrow raised. "How does something like that 'just happen,' Nate?"
"I don't know, Serena," he says curtly, turning. "You've never slept with someone without planning to?"
She sucks in a quick breath. "That's not fair."
Nate looks like he might say something else but doesn't; he just shrugs one shoulder, nonplussed. Serena gets it, though: no part of this is fair.
Serena's not done with Dan, she knows that, but apparently Nate's only starting with him.
The end of summer is creeping up on them; the countdown to the start of school is beginning. Serena is supposed to go home in two weeks, meet her mother and Eric fresh from their trip, and get herself together before her senior year begins. She's dreading it, though, dreading a home where Bart Bass and Chuck are semi-permanent fixtures, dreading applying to colleges, dreading the hallways and the gossip. She'd like to stay firmly in this summer twilight, right on the precipice of autumn, for as long as possible.
She's lonely, though, and there's nothing Serena hates more than feeling so impossibly lonely.
Blair was right, she should have founds some townie fling of her own. Only disposable boys have completely lost their appeal for Serena and she has no interest in keeping a new one around long term.
"I worry about you, dear," her grandmother says over gin and breakfast. "You haven't been yourself lately."
"I'm fine, Grandma," Serena repeats, poking listlessly at her oatmeal.
"You should see your friends more," Cece insists. "I know it would make you feel better, darling."
When Serena's alone with Dan – tucked up in his arms, carding her fingers aimlessly through his hair (she'd never realized it was so curly, it had been too short to tell before) – she tries to find a way to tell him how she feels. Only she can't; she cringes internally at the thought of sounding so vulnerable.
When she's alone with Nate – rarely, and usually only when they're at the beach – she finds she can't speak either, but only because she knows Nate has no answers and will make no admissions.
Generally they avoid being in the same place at the same time, the three of them, but it happens. Anne and Cece corral them into the same garden parties, poolside farewell-to-summer soirees. When they are together, it's obvious how uneasy she makes Dan and Nate. She remembers that day at the beach before they knew she knew, how they held their little secret between them with a kind of playfulness.
Now they don't. They don't touch, or joke; they barely hold eye contact.
The last party of the season is usually at the Macintoshes,' usually themed. Usually Serena and Blair go in coordinating costumes and drink all the champagne they can stand, but this year no luck. Blair is off pretending to break up with Peter and Serena is sipping champagne alone.
She sees the boys across the way: Dan fidgeting endlessly with his tie and Nate turning a slow, amused smile Dan's way. Nate touches Dan's hand lightly, stilling him.
Impetuously, Serena sets down her flute and gathers her skirt, darts across the lawn towards them. On her way she steals a bottle of wine from the bar; it doesn't even require any sweet talking, there's just too much around for anyone to notice when it's gone.
"Hi," she says, a little breathless, when she stops in front of them. "This party sucks."
Dan frowns uncertainly but Nate gives her a small smile. "It does."
She looks at Dan, the too-tight knot of his tie. "Do you want to leave?"
Dan and Nate exchange a glance and Dan says, "Alright."
They weave away from the crowd of middle-aged women in candy pastel summer dresses and men in clean beige suits, through the greenery that rings the property, and choose a grassy clearing to sit in. Serena hands Nate the bottle and drops right onto the grass, heedless of her pale blue skirt and stains.
"You didn't get a corkscrew," Dan says, with one of those frowny little looks of his that's so stupidly normal.
Serena makes a face at him, tells him to figure it out then.
She watches, amused and intrigued, as the two of them attempt to do just that. There are some aborted attempts with keys before they discover the Swiss army knife in Nate's pocket, courtesy of Grandfather. They laugh when they get the cork free, grinning widely at each other, and then they remember Serena and duck their heads in embarrassment.
"It's okay," she says, a little haltingly. Then she holds out her hands, smoothing over the awkwardness. "I need alcohol."
"You should have brought tequila or something," Nate says, wrinkling his nose at the label before giving the bottle to her.
"This isn't Cabo San Lucas, it's a garden party," Dan says.
It's so random Serena starts laughing, and Nate follows; he touches Dan's cheek, condescending and affectionate, and says, "You have so much to learn."
Dan's gaze slides towards Serena momentarily, questioningly. She just hands him the bottle.
They make small talk, uncomfortable only during the pauses of their sentences. They drink when silence stretches too long. It's a strange little picnic, hidden by the leafy trees, surrounded by the smell of fresh summer air and distant perfumes. The wine makes them less nervous around each other, at least. Serena can see the tight line of Dan's spine easing.
As Nate takes a sip, Dan steals the bottle away, spattering Nate's shirt with droplets; startled, Nate swallows and then laughs. He gives Dan a little push and steals the bottle back, holding it just out of reach. Dan has to lean across Nate to grab for it, which he does to no avail, and it looks for a minute like they might kiss.
They must realize it too, because Nate lets Dan have the wine and they sort of pull back into themselves self-consciously. Serena wets her lips, tastes wine and lipstick; Nate's mouth is stained ever so slightly pink.
Serena hasn't gotten drunk off wine since she was twelve so she has no excuse for saying, "Kiss."
They're both staring at her, but Nate recovers first. "What?"
"Kiss," she says, voice soft and mouth dry. She clears her throat. "You want to, don't you?"
"Serena," Dan starts.
"You don't have to," she says. She can't help her curiosity. "But if you wanted to…"
They trade another look, which makes Serena prickle with something like exasperation – why do they have to check with each other before they say anything? – but then Dan leans in and Nate tilts Dan's face up with a touch to his jaw and they kiss. Dan's mouth opens almost immediately and it makes Nate smile into the kiss before deepening it.
Serena doesn't know how to react now that she's asked and they've obliged – if something specific should be showing on her face. She's not sure she could control it if that's the case. She's pretty sure she's just staring, eyes wide. She bites her lip, shifts so she's sitting up on her knees, sets her hands on her thighs.
They part rather abruptly, maybe realizing what they look like. Nate's cheeks are flushed and Dan fumbles again with his tie, finally pulling it free.
Serena says, "You didn't have to stop."
Dan studies her. He looks flustered but there's determination when he asks, "What do you want?"
Serena's never known how to answer that but gives him something like the truth, or at least as much of it as she can grasp. "I want to know," she says. "What it's like."
Dan's eyes narrow a little, curiously; maybe he's thinking of the last time they were in bed together. You want to know about the sex.
Nate clears his throat, interjects, "What, like watch?"
The talking frustrates her; her tongue is tied. She doesn't know what to say and she's sick of trying to figure out what to say. This should be easier than it is. She looks from one boy to the other, two pairs of questioning eyes. Action is easier. It's clear.
Serena places both hands flat in the warm scratchy grass and leans over, kisses Nate once on the mouth. His lips part in surprise but she's already pulling back, turning to kiss Dan too.
"Show me," she says.
Nate's mouth is on Dan – Nate's mouth is on Dan's cock, Nate is turning Dan into a wreck.
Dan's shirt is mostly unbuttoned but still hanging from his shoulders. His stomach dips as his hips press up, twisting under Nate. His fingers twitch convulsively in Nate's hair until Nate reaches up to catch Dan's hand in his own, hold it down against the grass. Dan's breathing is rough, punctuated with little gasps.
Dan liked that, Serena thinks. Having his hands held down.
Nate's mouth slides over Dan so smoothly, his movements so sure they're almost authoritative, pulling off only to press his mouth to Dan's hipbones, along his stomach. Nate licks his lips (flushed a darker pink than before) before taking Dan between them again.
Serena's somewhere between panicked and turned on. Her hands are tangled in her skirt but she can't yet make herself move beneath it, despite the growing heat between her legs becoming harder to ignore. Her knees part a little, hips shift against nothing.
She's never seen either of them like this before – the tight slow-burning tension in Dan's body, Nate's teasing confidence.
"Kiss me," Dan says suddenly. She's not sure which one of them he's talking to but Nate is already moving up to capture his mouth, hand taking over. Dan kisses Nate hard, tugging at Nate's hair, brow creased almost in distress.
"Come on," Nate says, hardly audible, his hand around Dan's dick moving quicker, "You can do it, come on –"
Serena bites her lip too hard and feels the skin heat up as blood rushes to the spot. "Dan," she murmurs, softly, a moan or a whimper, maybe both.
"Come on," Nate says again, covers Dan's mouth with his to swallow his gasps.
Dan comes with every line in his body tense and then goes boneless, stirring only slightly to return Nate's kiss, both of their breathing quick and not yet under control.
Serena says his name again and he meets her eyes, his own hazy and dark. "You could –" she starts and then looks at Nate, worries the bitten spot on her lip.
Without question, or even much thought, Dan complies and tips Nate onto his back. He settles in Nate's lap, bends down for a slow kiss before whispering something Serena doesn't hear. Nate nods slightly in response and then they kiss again.
Serena frowns a little but then her attention is drawn to the path of Dan's hand, trailing over Nate's stomach to press firmly between his legs, tracing the shape of Nate's cock before finding the zipper of his pants without looking. Dan's mouth follows the same path, dropping unhurried kisses along Nate's chest before reaching the waistband of his boxers.
Dan glances up at Nate, tiny smile on his face, before moving lower. He wraps a hand around Nate and closes his lips around just the head of Nate's cock at first; Nate moans and Serena finally slips a hand under her skirt, echoes his sound. She's shivery and breathy as she watches Dan's cheeks hollow absurdly, watching him wring groans from Nate; she knows firsthand how good he is with his mouth.
Nate's eyes are open but he's not looking at anything, except maybe the canopy of leaves above, the odd slice of sky. His eyes flutter closed whenever he moans, though, whenever Dan must do something particularly good.
Serena presses her fingers inside herself but it's not – it's not enough, not nearly enough.
She inches forward until her knees brush Nate's side. That catches his attention. His unfocused eyes focus on her, eyebrows drawn together inquisitively, and, rather than ask for it aloud, Serena bends to press a quick kiss to his mouth. Almost immediately Nate is leaning up, grasping a handful of her hair, and kissing back.
It's not like the kiss in her room, or the one she only half-remembers from a year ago. It's another kind of kiss, a permitted kiss, a kiss she can enjoy without feeling guilty, a hungry kiss.
She can taste Dan on him too.
Nate pulls away on a groan, falling back against the ground. Serena looks back as Dan, so intent in his task, and smoothes her hand through his hair, tugs him off. He's breathing hard through his nose; he licks his lips, which are slightly puffy, like they've been kissed for hours.
"I want to –" Serena swallows.
"What?" Dan asks.
Her hands tighten in her skirt and she fidgets, says, "Do you have a condom?"
A look passes between the three of them, surprise almost funny on the boys' faces, before Dan is getting out his wallet, retrieving the little foil packet. He gets it open with fumbling fingers and puts it on Nate, stroking a few times for good measure.
So strange. Four months ago Dan would have had a panic attack at the thought of her sleeping with Nate, let alone doing it right in front of him.
Serena nudges Dan's hand aside and sits astride Nate's thighs, taking a little nervous breath before rising up and taking hold of him, sinking down. She can't control the sound that escapes her, rocking down, half-hoping Dan will start touching her too but too preoccupied to tell him to.
This is – this is bizarre, being with Nate. Nate is inside her and it's – it's weird, it's something she's not supposed to be doing. Everything she's ever had with Nate is something she's not supposed to have because of Blair, because he loved Blair – only he's not Blair's boyfriend anymore. He's nobody's boyfriend, so this is maybe the only time she's allowed to do this, to feel Nate inside her and under her fingertips, with his grinning blue eyes looking up at her –
Then he turns to Dan and, tightly gripping Dan's curls, pulls him into a hard kiss.
Serena feels very alone suddenly. It's like she's back to watching them and touching herself, like it doesn't matter if she's there or not.
As soon as they separate Serena kisses Nate, presses herself against him as much as she can, arms around his neck. Her hair falls around their faces, creating a little cocoon. She can feel Nate smile against her lips and he gives her a playful soft nip.
Dan kisses her shoulder and rests his hand on her lower back before running up her spine to release the catch on her dress. It's a halter; once released the front panel pools at her hips, leaves her naked from the waist up.
Serena sighs into his mouth as he kisses her, her head angling back as his lips move down to her collarbone and then over the curve of her breast. Nate's short fingernails bite into her thighs. Dan's hand is finding it's way under her skirt, between her legs, touching her and Nate before circling her clit, over and over.
Serena comes with a hard shudder that takes her by surprise – it felt like the spiraling hadn't finished yet, like she was still building towards something when it hits her, makes her shake. She doesn't know when it hits Nate, if it's at the same time or not, and their hips are still rocking together slightly, gently.
She meant to look at Nate when he came, to see if it matched up to the picture in her head. She'd forgotten to.
When she's finally come down enough to open her eyes it's to see Dan and Nate kissing again, a lazy leisurely kind of kissing with their hands on each other's faces, excluding her entirely.
Serena sighs, a harsh exhalation, and feels nothing but unsettled.
The next day Serena can't quite believe what she did.
What she did sober, no less.
She locks her window and pulls down the shade, keeps her door bolted and pleads cramps any time anyone knocks.
It had been good, right? It felt good. She had an orgasm that made her breathless for minutes afterwards, sent shivers through her blood. She didn't have to be jealous of Dan and Nate because she had been with Dan and Nate, it had been for her and because of her, it was what she asked for.
Serena doesn’t feel good though.
Eventually Dan knocks on her door, polite as anything. She turns him away the first time but then he's back twenty minutes later. "I have a sister," he says. "So I don't fear your lady issues. If you're not, you know, lying because you're embarrassed. In any case, I brought you Midol."
Serena almost wants to laugh. She buries her face in her hands a moment before deciding she might as well face it now, on her turf, and opens the door.
"Hey," he says softly.
Serena sits back on her bed, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "Hi."
Dan doesn't sit, just stands there with his hands in his pockets. "How are you doing?"
Serena shrugs.
"Do you want to talk about it?" When she doesn't say anything, he continues, "It was kind of…unexpected, I know we got sort of…uh, and…we probably should've talked about it, uh, more –"
"I feel horrible, Dan," she interrupts. "I was with two people I really cared about and it could have meant something but I just feel horrible."
Dan is at a loss for a moment. She wonders if he'll start rambling again. "I'm sorry, I –"
She tries to keep her voice steady but it comes out too small and uncertain as she asks again, "Are you in love with him?"
Dan opens his mouth, shuts it. "Don't be ridiculous."
"I know what I saw."
"That's not what this is about," Dan says. "That's not – that was what you asked to see. We were doing that for you."
Serena shrugs again, looks away. "You were doing it despite me."
Disbelieving, Dan says, "You asked. You can't just take it back because it didn't go how you thought it would –"
"So you're just fine with this?" she says. "You weren't jealous at all watching me and Nate?"
His jaw clenches. "That's not the point."
"So what is the point?" She sits up. "Why did you come here?"
"I wanted to see how you were," he says tightly. "What happened was a big deal and I wanted to see if you were okay, because I care about you."
She studies him. "Do you love me?"
"You know that I do," he says.
"But not enough to stop sleeping with Nate."
Dan doesn't say anything. Then, "I didn't…I didn't expect you'd to be back so soon, or that we'd…that you would want to get back together."
It hurts, unexpectedly sharply.
"So that gives you free reign to sleep with my friends?" Serena says.
Dan starts shaking his head. "We shouldn't have –"
"I know you shouldn't have," she says.
"No." Dan looks at her. "You and I shouldn't have slept together. The three of us shouldn't have slept together."
Serena stares at the pattern on her sheets, pale green and gold. "I need you to leave."
When he's gone Serena cries for the first time all summer.
The night she tiptoes into Blair's room, crawls under the covers and tucks herself against Blair's side.
"God, S, it's three a.m.," Blair mumbles sleepily, nevertheless turning her face into Serena's hair. "Why are you even up?"
"I can't sleep," Serena says. She rubs at her eyes with one hand; tears keep slipping out at odd moments, she can't stop them. "I'm sorry we fought."
"It's fine," Blair murmurs. "You were PMS-ing."
Serena laughs, an abrupt little sound. "No I wasn't. I've just been miserable for weeks."
"You don't have to explain lashing out to me," Blair says, pushing her sleep mask up and blinking at Serena blearily. "I did practically invent it, after all."
"So you're not still mad?"
Blair shakes her head.
"Good." Serena nudges closer, slipping an arm around Blair.
"Are you okay?"
Serena swallows and nods, doesn't mean it.
Serena's never been good at figuring herself out, but she thought she was better at it than this.
.tbc.