Giacomo Casanova: Do you know what 'Casanova' means in the original Latin?
Bellino: No.
Giacomo Casanova: It means 'lucky bastard'.
--
Nate is seven when Blair places herself in between Serena so that she gets to sit closer to Nate.
At first, he's a little mad because Serena has these pretty blue eyes and shiny blonde hair but after a couple minutes he doesn't mind so much.
Blair laces her little fingers through his and crosses her ankles and when she smiles at him he thinks about his favorite hot chocolate.
She tells him in a bossy voice that they are married now, and he has to do what she says because that's what good husbands do.
Nate nods solemnly, trying to be serious and grown up and responsible like his Dad and Blair smiles at him, obviously pleased.
"I like your dress."
It's navy blue with a big bow and it has pretty patterns on it.
"Thank you very much, honey."
Blair breaks away from the grown-up Blair for a second, leans in extra close and giggles when she says, "See? Isn't this fun?"
Her pale pink nails cover her mouth politely and Nate thinks he could play this kind of game forever.
--
Nate is thirteen when Serena first looks at him like that. He's come to pick her up for a benefit because Blair's in Paris shopping with her mom and dad and, "Nate you have to go! And take Serena because she doesn't have anyone to go with."
So really, it is all Blair's fault.
He walks into Serena's room without knocking, because they never do, and she's standing there in a floor-length golden, glimmering, boob-showing off dress that stops Nate dead in his tracks.
"You look- um, well…"
"Too much, right? I told Lilly it was."
Nate still isn't sure what to say except for well, Blair doesn't have boobs like that and Serena's grinning at him and biting her bottom lip and he heard that she gave Carter Baizen a blowjob in his car and everything is clouded over by a dirty, sex-tinted haze of thoughts even though this is the girl who he held when she cried after her dad left.
"You look beautiful, Serena. Really, really beautiful."
She nervously fingers the material on her dress, looks down at her feet in a gesture so un-Serena like that he feels the innate need to protect her.
His feet drag him towards her like a magnet and Nate wonders where she learned to do that.
Placing one hand on her shoulder, he reassures her again that she looks beautiful and when Serena's sky blue eyes stare into his navy one's his heart does a weird flippy thing.
They get drunk and leave the party early and eat PopTarts in bed while they're both wearing Nate's lacrosse tees and Nate tries to forget the look on her face to no avail.
--
Nate is fourteen when he nervously touches the buttons on Blair's Ralph Lauren white blouse.
She holds her breath, nods silently and watches as he carefully undoes each to reveal the beige lace bra that moves every time she takes a breath.
He's never done this before, isn't really sure what to do, but Chuck's told him some really great stories. It was easier to remember them when Blair in all her shirtless glory wasn't staring him in the face.
He carefully places his hand over her left boob with awe in his touch and when he looks back at Blair she's smiling big and wide and Nate leans down a little bit farther to kiss her on her perfect red lips.
--
Nate is fifteen when all his feelings get pushed around and mixed up and confused by the Veuve Clicquot champagne he's been inhaling.
Serena and he sit in the corner, legs all over each other, shoes dangling off her toes and what seem to be miles and miles of legs showing.
He inhales her scent, sandalwood and vanilla, takes in the way her eyes look bigger and brighter and sparklier, locks pinkies with her as she leans in toward him and drunkenly laughs about Chuck's latest conquest.
His smile has never been so wide, so wide he thinks his face could break and that thought sends him on another drunken giggling spree.
Blair comes over, a disapproving Chuck at her hip smirking and sipping from his glass of amber liquid with a holier-than-thou feeling.
"You're making a scene! Get out and sober up for God's sake!"
The words explode from Blair's angry mouth like darts and Nate feels slighted as he walks away, following Serena and the curve of her back into the empty bar.
Serena, who never yells at him. Serena, who knows how to have fun. Serena, who leans in closer than necessary to whisper things just because.
He kisses her tight when she sits down, messy and hard and she tugs at his Gucci belt buckle. He enters her with a sigh and she groans lustily before tugging at his hair.
Then it's over, and the words I love you are left dangling unspoken in the sex-stenched air.
--
Nate is sixteen when he watches his girlfriend fall to pieces with not a single hair out of place. He doesn't do a damn thing about it.
He lays around and smokes pot, and pines and pines and pines for Serena because sex is big and important and nobody just leaves Nate Archibald.
Blair's words get sharper, and her waist gets smaller, and her kisses get more desperate but Nate is too busy playing the victim to really care.
He gets a sharp talking to from Chuck one rare sober (on Nate's part) night as Chuck calmly asks if he knows what he's throwing away by acting like such an ass. Nate laughs, and "What the hell man? Maybe you've had too much to drink," comes out because Chuck can't possibly be serious.
"You're right." Chuck says and stalks away leaving Nate alone at the bar.
But still, the words resonate with Nate so he walks over to Blair's apartment despite the cold and when she greets him with an appropriate peck on his lips he deepens it.
"Come on, we're going for a walk."
Her mouth drops into a perfect 'O', glossed ruby red and he absentmindedly thinks of Snow White.
"Come on!"
He knows he'll win, that with a patented Nate Archibald grin she'll flounce off and pretend to be upset which is exactly what she does in a matter of seconds.
When she comes back ten minutes later she's dressed in a snow-white coat and beret, navy tights, and black heels and Nate doesn't think a woman so covered in clothes has looked so beautiful.
They walk through Central Park and look at all the window displays and Blair even agrees to a cup of steaming-hot chocolate from Williams Sonoma.
She marvels at the beauty of the tree in Rockefeller, despite openly complaining about the tourists in their various brightly colored North Face Parkas. Still, her face glows from being happy (which happens less and less these days) and Nate pulls her close to kiss her before the smile has a chance to leave her face.
--
Nate is seventeen when Serena comes back. He feels and thinks the same things he always does when he sees her, Serena beautiful sex summer laughing beautiful –oh there's Blair.
Blair walks out of her room and beats Nate to the prize, leaving him alone in the hallway with a stupid grin on his face.
But, according to her, she didn't come back for him and Nate is left standing by himself in the courtyard of the Palace with nothing but a surplus of hair product and a hollow feeling in his throat.
Fine, he thinks, I don't need you. Because he doesn't need her, doesn't really need anyone, but he wants her so much that he dreams about her dancing on top of a bar and sneaking peeks up her yellow dress.
So he tells Blair, watches her crumple, walks away from it and promises not to talk to Serena, watches her the pain in her blue eyes, tries to fuck up her new relationship as revenge, then kisses a blonde girl in another yellow dress with hopes of redemption.
Serena's always been a better friend to Blair than Nate as a boyfriend, so he's not really surprised when it doesn't work.
--
Nate is still seventeen when he finds out that karma's a bitch.
He's won Blair back for a second time, even got to sleep with her after punching out Carter Baizen for being an all-around ass. Blair and Nate 2.0 is perfect and he admits his flaws and Serena's too busy being wrapped up in Dan Humphrey to be distracting but little does he know that Chuck is lurking around corners.
Blair slept with Chuck, Chuck slept with Blair, whosever fault it is he finds he doesn't care.
He can't look at Chuck without wanting to punch something hard, preferably Chuck's face, and he can't look at Blair without wanting to scream at her.
But time heals all wounds, at least he's heard, and pretty soon he misses her coy smiles in the hallways, and the white tights, and her enormous headbands. The way she used to give him custom made navy and dark green M&M's just because, the smiles she gave him when he had finally done something right.
He wonders when he'll ever get anything right.
--
Nate is still seventeen when a girl with curly hair and a scooter sweep him off his own two feet.
She's so different from anything he's ever known, and she judges him so harshly and immediately that he feels he has something he needs to prove to her.
Vanessa has blue eyes (Serena) and brown curls (Blair) but her own opinions and beliefs and Nate thinks she might be able to tell him what exactly his should be.
She kisses exactly like she is, strong and opinionated and she tastes fresh and tangy, like she's always drinking lemonade or something. She wears neon colors and makes documentaries and reads Hemingway for fun and is homeschooled, for God's sake.
He loves being submersed in Brooklyn, away from Blair and Serena and his dad and Chuck and his mom and the fucking Vanderbilts.
They walk around hand in hand in Brooklyn and buy cheap food from street vendors and the clinkity-clink-clink of her giant hoop earrings and the twinkling of the city lights distract him from his real problems and real life waiting to suffocate him back on the Upper East Side.
Turns out the problem is that he has an Upper East Side waiting for him at all, that it isn't enough for him to try to take the subway when he could be taking a car.
She leaves him alone at the Bass- van der Woodsen wedding when Blair and Chuck proclaim love and Serena and Dan fall to pieces.
He's not quite sure what to do about it.
--
"Hey, if you wanna reflect alone together, I'll be around."
"What are you up to now?"
His hand brushes against her hip and he thinks that she must have been made for summer as her hand grips the iced coffee and her hair glints in the sun.
--
Nate is going to be a senior in high school when every cliché and joke that's been made about his good looks and less than genius intelligence come true.
Serena looks at him with horror in her eyes, and Nate wants to snap at her about the many creepy married bankers she's logged time with in the back of bars and clubs but instead he asks her to keep up the fake relationship.
He ignores the fact that it might be a little too easy to fall into a relationship routine with Serena but kisses her in public anyways.
Katherine's kind of a bitch (Blair) and Vanessa comes back into his life creeped out by his new turn as a gigolo and he thinks its adorable the way she fights so hard for him.
After Katherine is banished because of her much-too-friendly reputation with her stepson, Nate feels like he can breathe again and like all the fresh air in the world is coming from Brooklyn.
Vanessa's mad at him, mad for his life falling apart and him doing the only thing he could think of at the moment and he's sleeping in a sleeping bag so he starts caring less and less.
--
Nate is eighteen when he moves in with the Humphreys and really notices Jenny Humphrey.
Her hair is shorter, and her clothes are crazier, and for that matter so is she. He accidentally walks in on her when the garage door isn't down, hot pink bra and skin-tight jeans that he sees even with his eyes shut tight against the world around him.
Turns out Jenny hangs out with crazy people too, and when they make out in the street Nate doesn't really think about her, only thinks about Dan and fifteen and the way her lips taste too much like ambition for his own taste.
It ends as quickly as it began and Nate cares at least a little so he tries to write his feelings down onto paper and he drops it into the mailbox before he can change his mind.
Nate guesses he stops thinking about Jenny's bra and kohl-lined eyes about the same time the postman picks up the letter.
--
Nate is eighteen when Vanessa comes back into his life, silver gown and floodlights and tears that change his life right before his best friend's is changed forever.
He climbs into a cab with her and falls in love with her all over again and this time, they laugh at the class issues and watch operas from shitty seats and then the Archibald's box and they celebrate anniversaries with gummy candy.
Nate is effortlessly, joyfully, happy and he plans a trip to Eastern Europe with Vanessa even though it sounds like something out of a bad 90's teen movie.
They are effortlessly, joyfully, happy until they aren't anymore and Nate watches Vanessa with sad eyes as Grandfather claps him proudly on the back and the rest of his family applauds at his return.
Vanessa walks away and Nate briefly wonders if his return was really so triumphant but the sentiment is swept away when Tripp hooks an arm around his neck.
--
Nate is still eighteen when he is , for once, not the one having some kind of identity crisis.
Blair is falling, falling, falling and for once he's the one to actually catch her while Chuck waits for the real Blair to come back.
Nate wonders if the real Blair ever left, considering how she bargains away his freedom and Columbia for a spot in the wedding picture and a potential life as a socialite.
Chuck tells him, eyes hooded and heart out for all to see, that he shouldn't want Blair to change at all. Nate ignores the implication behind the words and leaves to secure the prize because he's said it before and he'll say it again, he wants her.
"Move in with me?"
Nate swallows hard when Blair falters and pretends he's not in second place and even when she does answer his question with a firm no, he still lives the dream by taking her to prom.
She shines, radiates the sparkle that shines on her head and all-around owns prom. He sees Chuck grinning from his pedestal on the stage with his hand firmly planted on Blair's waist but blames it on the glare from the lights.
They break up later that night, and Nate's a little surprised even if he shouldn't be. He watches Blair and Serena on the steps and his heartstrings are tugged by both chestnut and golden hairs, as it has always been.
--
Prague is, very blurry.
He remembers vodka, and kissing Vanessa in the rain, and the feel of her hand pressed against his chest, but he doesn't remember anything else.
He's kind of glad.
--
Nate is a freshman in college when he gets lucky and ends up sitting next to a glorious redhead on his flight home from Heathrow.
That bubble is burst quickly, Romeo and Juliet and all that jazz. He likes kissing her when they're locked up behind closed doors, playing secret relationship and all but she would never risk her family and Nate still feels like he runs the risk of being tortured by her redneck family if he continues to date her.
Plus, she's kind of boring. It might just be because of Blair and her plotting, Serena and her messes, Vanessa and her dreams, but Bree is really just a pretty face and way to piss of Grandfather wrapped conveniently in a Southern accented package and a guaranteed waste of time.
He's talking to Blair shortly after Bree leaves, and she casually mentions the fact that Serena isn't going to Brown, and would Nate be so kind as to let Serena crash at his ridiculous Murray Hill apartment since Carter Baizen has up and left?
Nate watches as she coyly smiles, recognizes the glint in her eyes and plays dumb anyways, agreeing and mentioning that it's only a one bedroom.
Blair practically snorts in a most unladylike matter, and "Please, it's not like you guys haven't seen each other naked before," drips from her lips and Nate thinks he could be pulled back in to her if he really wanted to.
He agrees again, and Blair flits off into Chuck's car while Nate is left alone.
--
Nate is almost nineteen when Serena moves in. She knocks on the door and barrels him over with an enthusiastic hug, carrying a carton of chocolate milk, a Costco-sized package of brown cinnamon sugar PopTarts, and a bottle of Ketel One in her bag as some poor helpless guy brings her various baggage into the apartment.
He smells her hair, still coconut, and grins as she halfheartedly takes everything out of her suitcase and doesn't really hang anything up.
She removes two shot glasses from her purse, pours them each a shot, and Nate raises his glass to her cheer of, "To roommates!"
The vodka goes down and warms his body, and Serena watches him with that look in her eyes and her chin placed in her hands.
He's always been more of a beer man, and the vodka blurs everything but puts Serena into a sharp focus and she seems a million times more bright than everything in the room.
Three shots later, they lean in close towards each other and even when Nate closes his eyes he feels like Serena's light could burn him.
--
And so it goes, on and on, and Nate wonders if he'll ever learn.
--
AN: So I'm in love with Nate Archibald, and want to write myself into this fic desperately. The B/N parts are dedicated to mystripedskirt, and I might've mixed up a couple things because I was feeling too desperately lazy to check on the internet. I hope you enjoyed it, and I know the end is kind of open-ended, because I wanted Nate to end up with Serena in my head but it could be read as he ended up with someone else. Quote, not mine. Title, not mine. Gossip girl, not mine. Summary, not mine.