𝑮 𝑶 𝑳 𝑫 𝑬 𝑵

<<< FLASHBACK <<< Eric and Nate: October 13th, 2016 @serialromeo​

He hadn’t even been back for a month, but he had already attended four charity gala’s, two brunches and six different dinner parties. Thanks, mom. He’d forgotten how much responsibility came with being in the city, and how much it could take its toll on him. 

He’d first thought of it when he was at the Coates’ for a dinner party, and he’d figured that just one sip wouldn’t hurt. Even that thought alone scared him, though, so he’d excused himself early and gone home to go to bed. He’d felt better in the morning.

The second time had been more troublesome, because he’d been over to his sister’s and had wondered if she kept any alcohol in the house - and if so, where that could be. That, in itself, isn’t terrible, but then telling her he was going to the bathroom but instead checking out the different rooms in the house that might hold liquor, was. After he’d left, he’d gone straight to the gym to take his mind off it. He just needed to adjust to city life, is all.

A little less than a week later, as he spent yet another twenty minutes in the bathroom of a five-star hotel to escape the tedious row of speeches given after dinner, he looked at himself in the mirror and thought that if he could just have a single glass of whiskey, he’d feel better and he wouldn’t be tempted anymore. Unlike the previous two times, that thought didn’t scare him, and it was only when Chuck came to look for him that he dismissed the thought and went back inside.

And then, that Sunday during brunch, where unlike what his mom had promised, the closest person of Eric’s age was eleven, and the next one was 48, he’d suffered through two and a half hours of ‘who’s who’ and ‘who’s doing who’ before he’d had enough and gone out to the balcony to get some fresh air when a well-meaning server had offered him the last flute of champagne on the tray. Instinctively, he’d thanked her and picked it up before she went back inside, then stared at the glass for a solid ten minutes before he poured it out over the plants. The problem with that was that he didn’t pour it out because he knew he shouldn’t drink it, but because champagne would just not cut it.

And so, by the time he’d entered his previous favorite watering hole (and had, shamefully, been greeted like an old acquaintance), it was a little after two PM, although the blacked out windows had always given the bar a very ‘night clubby’ vibe. Surprisingly, the worst part wasn’t that he’d ordered whiskey. No, the worst part was that the barman had set down a glass and bottle in front of him after he’d ordered. Just like when he was seventeen. And just like when he was seventeen, he was glad he was all the way up in Harlem, where no other Upper East Sider would come if they didn’t absolutely have to.

And then, he looked at what was in front of him and his chest tightened. He reached for the sobriety chip in his wallet and put it down right next to the glass, as if to torture himself even more. Nine years, the chip said. Even more, he thought, because he’d had that chip since February. He was coming up on ten years. He’d lasted for ten years. And yet, he thought, if he could just have that one glass. Just the taste. It’d be enough, he thought, lying to himself. 

At that point, his phone pinged and he took it out to see that Serena had texted him to confirm dinner plans. And then all he could think of was Serena. He’d promised her that he’d never make her go through it again, that she wouldn’t ever have to worry because he’d tell her if things were difficult. But if he had to call her now, she’d be disappointed. She’d try to hide it, but she was his sister. He’d know. And that was a thought that Eric couldn’t bear to even think about.

Instead, before he could change his mind, he searched for another number and called it, not sure if he was hoping that Nate would or wouldn’t answer. And then, right after the guy on the other side of the line had greeted him, he simply said “can you come get me? I’m at the bar on East 116th,” before ending the call, lacking the mental strength to explain more over the phone.

When Eric called, Nate answered. He unapologetically dropped everything and came running. He was in the middle of a date, actually, when he got Eric’s call. He apologized profusely and explained very minimally why he needed to leave so quickly. 

It wasn’t his place to tell others stories. Always having Gossip Girl lurking over their shoulders was enough without fearing that the people you were closest to would spill your secrets. He’d never sent a tip into Gossip Girl, and he never would.

He shot Eric a text as he hailed a cab. “Be there in 10.” He gave the driver the address and asked him to book it. The ride ended up only being 7-8 minutes, but it felt like an hour. Nate sat in the back, his leg bouncing as he anxiously stared at his phone, begging Eric silently to just hold on. 

When he got to the bar, he overpaid the cab because there was no time to wait for change and barged through the door. There he was. Sitting at the bar, staring down at his glass. A bottle was sitting in front of him too, and as Nate walked closer, he noted the sobriety chip. 

He slid silently into the seat next to him. “Hey,” he said quietly. He wasn’t going to force Eric out of the bar. He wasn’t going to call in back-up or demand the bartender take away the drink. He wasn’t here to save him, to be his hero. He was just here. Here for him. 

Drinking the whiskey would be his choice, but he wasn’t going to do it alone. 

Nate nodded to the glass, and then quietly, as if only expressing a gentle curiosity asked, “Have you had any?”

“Luckily for you, I’m not any cute girl on the side of the road.” Charlie said with a smirk pressed to her lips. While being a single mother to two twins, she still had the confidence she had when she was twenty-years old. It would never change as she knew it was the trait that flattered her best. Following the male as best she could with her heel in hand, she paused by his side when she noted the super glue. After mouthing a thank you to the assistant, she turned her attention to the male. “I promise, cross my heart and hope to die.” The brunette said as she made a show of making a rather large x upon her heart.

He liked this, he thought. The flirty, easy banter. The banter that wasn’t tainted by grief or loss. He was mourning, but he would survive. He would make it through the tunnel. He waited another moment before relenting the glue, staring at her with one brow raised as if trying to see through her. “Okay...” he finally said, dragging out the word and slowly handing the glue over to her. He nodded behind her, “My office is right there if you need to sit down. I don’t have any latex gloves or sterile tools, unfortunately,” he joked.

Sabrina bit her lip, pausing for a moment before answering. There were a million different ways she could play this. Most of them involved lying, and after the day she’d had….she really couldn’t stomach it. So instead she chose the potentially more difficult truth. “No, no. You’re all good on that front.” The blonde assured him. “I just recognized you. And I figured you probably want to be left alone so I was trying to just do that.” She explained quietly before taking another sip of her drink. “I didn’t want to bother, clearly you’re in your own zone.” Sabrina added, nodding towards his fresh drink.

He nodded, already used to the stares he got. Everyone recognized him as Chuck’s best friend, just as everyone recognized Blair as Chuck’s ex-wife. He shrugged. He’d been alone for four drinks now. He didn’t mind the company, as long as they talked about anything besides what he was drinking about. “Stay,” he asked her. “Please. I could use the distraction,” he admitted. “What’s your name?” It seemed unfair that she knew him, but he didn’t know her.

     “It’s all good, brother.” Mav responded quickly, not one to take trivial things to heart. There was no way that Nate could’ve known that he was in recovery anyhow. It wasn’t exactly something that he went around boasting because he wasn’t that kind of guy. He kept shit to himself nowadays. Mav clapped Nate gently on the back as he sat his glass down on the wood of the bar. “They’ll get their money’s worth one way or another, man. It’s up to you to know when you’ve reached your limit… but I get how hard it can be to do that.”

Nate nodded. He agreed, he did, but there was a part of him that was jaded. He knew the way of the rich and famous, and of the tabloids. He knew that people were set up to fail just for the headline, for the drama. For some entertainment. “Sometimes it just feels like they’re waiting for a story, you know? We already know that all eyes are on us. It’s hard enough not to misstep without being tripped.”

A lie. He’d lied to her. Or… was it for her? She felt the smile lift her features before she realized what she was doing. Hadn’t she just made a mental pledge not to do this? But something about this was so familiar. So comfortable. So fun. Hadn’t he shirked his responsibilities for her before? And hadn’t he almost immediately changed his mind? But this was just the first part, and, conveniently, the only part she remembered right now. 

“Yeah, okay,” she replied, maybe too quickly. Did she sound eager? Like, too eager? Maybe she was doubling-down on the deja vu, maybe this was a bad idea, but maybe they could just… catch up. “I’d actually love a coffee.” 

How long had it’d been since he’d seen her? Since they’d been together? Years? Months? Minutes? It felt like no time had passed, like they were two people in constant orbit of each other. He couldn’t help the grin on his face. It blossomed in the pit of his stomach and spread to warm the tips of his fingers. This was what it felt like every day with her. Like an adventure, like butterflies living in his gut.

They were just catching up.

This was innocent.

This was fine.

“Great,” he said, unable to hide the way it made him feel. The joy. He almost, almost, forgot his grief. He nodded his head backwards and took a small step. “There’s a great shop about a block from here,” he told her. As they walked he slipped his phone out of his pocket and shot a quick text to his client, asking that they reschedule. “So how have you been? What have you been up to?” He knew what she’d been up to, of course, but it was polite to ask. 

“It has,” she agreed, unable to tell if he thought that was a good thing or a bad one. It was hard to say where they’d be now if she hadn’t left the city, although she had a good feeling she’d still be either fighting with Serena for his attention or he’d just be dating her. She didn’t feel like spending her life in competition with her sister. She nodded when he suggested an escape, the presence of the photographer just making this reunion more awkward than it already was. “As long as you don’t make me run in these boots, sure.”

Things were sticky with Lola, and it was obvious in the way they interacted. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. It wasn’t the way it used to be. He knew it was his fault, things ended. Because it was Serena that always seemed to get in the way. Of everyone. Of Blair, of Lola, of Vanessa. “No running,” he laughed, nodding his head as he led her towards the street. He had a car waiting on the corner to take him back to the office when his run was over, but he could be a little late. He opened the door and gestured for her to go first. “After you.”

“I would never judge you, Nathaniel,” Lily said as she put a reassuring hand on his back and then sat down next to him. “Worrying, however - now that is something I am allowed to do,” she added, obvious that she wouldn’t tolerate protest. Then, before the young man could reply, the barman walked up to her and she ordered a glass of Cabernet, though her focus remained fixated on Nate. They had both lost someone invaluable when they lost Chuck. “How many of those have you had already?”

Nate shrugged. “Three, maybe.” That was a lie. It was five, but Lily was as much a mother to Nate as Anne was. He’d spent more time at her house than he had at his own as a kid. She gave him Eric, and she gave him Serena. And she’d lost Chuck, who he knew was just as much a son to her as he was. He hung his head. In shame, and in grief. He wasn’t the only one hurting. “I don’t know what to do without him,” he admitted. He was falling apart in front of her in a way that someone only did with a parental figure.

At Nate’s question, he furrowed his brow and looked from the cup of tea in front of him back to Nate, somehow feeling exposed. Nate and Eric had always been good friends, but especially since he’d left the Ostroff had he felt particularly close. Aside from Serena, he was probably the only person who really knew how Eric had felt before, during and after his addiction and the subsequent attempt on his own life. It was that knowledge that reassured Eric that despite his tone, he’d asked out of worry and not mockery. 

“Rarely,” Eric said, although that maybe wasn’t entirely true. Occasionally, he revisited his former hang out spots, almost like revisiting his old life. The pre-fragile Eric. The Eric that he was before people always looked guilty when drinking in front of him, or were worried because he didn’t answer a text for a few hours, or felt like they needed to visit him - you know, just because. 

Of course, he couldn’t blame them. If it was reversed, he’d be the same. But even though he’d hated his life pre-attempt, there were parts of it he missed, parts that he’d never get back. And so, occasionally, once every two month or so, he revisited it, though he was always careful to be in the right state of mind to do so. But he doubted Nate would understand that, would see past the fact that he was just tempting himself, making it more difficult for him than it needs to be. “I can’t have mocktails, remember?” It was too similar to the real deal. The next step would be too small.

It was only after he’d said it that Nate realized the way it could have come off. Judgemental, maybe. He wasn’t, and though he was sure Eric knew that, he found himself wanting to be absolutely sure. He swiveled in the bar seat to face him, eyes widening slightly at his own realization and embarrassment. “I’m sorry, man. That came out wrong.” He sighed, shaking his head and turning back forward. “I’ve been doing that a lot lately,” he admitted. “Saying the wrong thing. It’s like I’ve got no filter.”

He nodded his head, “I know. I remember.” He’d been there for Eric countless times. when he was sober and hating it, when he was sober and loving it. When he was balancing on a tightrope. Nate assured him, and Eric always knew, that no matter if he took the drink or washed it down the drain, that he would be there for him. To catch him, and to pick him back up. “I should take notes,” he admitted, pushing the whiskey in front of him away with his pointer finger. “This shit doesn’t help. Just gives me a headache and hurts people.”

Maybe he was over-compensating, trying to make Eric feel better, but it was the truth. But this was also the truth: he didn’t know how to cope. He didn’t know how to handle being in a world without Chuck in it. Everything he was doing, day to day, was just Nate trying to learn how to be Nate Without Chuck. He didn’t feel like he was any closer to figuring it out.

Devin wasn’t totally out of the loop when it came to the who’s-who of New York, it was just that the names and faces she cared most about? Well, they weren’t always the ones that tended to end up on page six. And even though she hadn’t taken a seat at the Empire Hotel bar not knowing the type of person who tended to frequent it, she didn’t know the guy sitting beside her was anyone particularly noteworthy. Add in the drinks she should definitely have stopped having, and you had a recipe for complete and total anonymity. “You really want to hear about my shit day?” she asked, brows drawing together for a moment. “I can’t pretend like it’ll be all that interesting – I just, I messed up at work.”

“Honestly,” Nate smiled, a genuine one, “I want nothing more.” It was true. Not being Nate Archibald for a few minutes. Hearing someone else’s stories, and as bad as it sounded, living in their bad day, was all he wanted. He wanted to not be in his head, to not be in his own grief. “Where do you work?” He was genuinely curious. She was cute and easy to talk to. And he was drunk, but so was she. That probably helped.

Charlie knew better than to enter any building with a stranger, especially not after her experience in China Town when she was fifteen years old. She’d ended up spending over one hundred and fifty dollars on a knock off gucci hand back just to get out of the damn room the woman had brought her in. However, without any other choice but wobble around New-York city, she chose to follow him. “Just so you know, I do have pepper spray.” The woman threw out on the off chance that he had ill-intentions with her. With a huff, the dramatic brunette pulled herself together and did her best to follow him to his building with squared shoulders and her head held high.

“Good,” he retorted easily, a genuine but amused smile on his lips. “One of us should. Any cute girl on the sidewalk could snap her heel off and rob you blind, after all.” He opened the door of his building to her. The floor was bustling with various activities. They were gearing up for a giant election, after all. It felt more like a classic newsroom than an office for political campaign staff. Nate approached the assistant at the front desk and asked quietly for super-glue, which she promptly handed over. Nate held it to his chest as if it was a sacred item. “Can I trust you with this?”

It had been a rough 24 hours. Sabrina had sat through a board meeting, had to fire an intern for leaking confidental information through an accidental instagram snafu, and renege in the middle of contract negotiations with an author she’d been dying to sign to Olympic for months because of plagarism allegations over their past work. All she wanted was to be alone with a stiff drink, perhaps even several. The Empire had been the closest spot so here she was, sliding onto a bar stool and formulating a plan for what to order first when a voice piped up from her right. She sighed, rolling her eyes before even looking over. “I couldn’t care less to be honest. As long as your drinking doesn’t interfere with mine so-” She broke off as she finally made eye contact with the source of the comment, taking a moment to process before looking away again. Nathaniel Archibald, one of the very recently deceased Chuck Bass’s closest compatriots. She’d be damned if this city of millions didn’t seem to be getting smaller by the day.

Nate was drunk in an unusual way. He didn’t feel better, or good. His anxiety and grief wasn’t subdued. The flush on his cheeks and the tingle in his head was the only indication that the alcohol was doing anything at all. This, he thought even as he finished off the glass clutched in his hand, was why he typically stuck to smoking. Nate smirked, a silent chuckle. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he admitted as he flagged down the bartender. Maybe, he thought, he was in need of another. Then the liquor might do its job. He noted the way she stopped herself short and glanced away anxiously. “What? Do I have something between my teeth?” The alcohol was, he guessed, working to loosen his tongue.

      Maverick shrugged off the apology, not feeling it was necessary. After all, he had seemed to have been under the impression that he was someone else to begin with. “ I’ve uttered that same sentence for a life time, my friend. I think the real question is if you truly believe someone will fall for it every time. ” Shuffling his feet, the musician turned so that he could rest his arms against the bar. He chuckled at the former’s inquisition and took a sip from his glass before sitting the glass back down and wiping his bottom lip with his thumb. “ Sober. Just came to check on a friend. Make sure he got home alright. ”

Nate turned to look at the man now. Even drunk, he recognized him. Maverick Lewis, the lead singer of... the name of the band escaped him now. The music wasn’t his style, but he knew they were talented. He regretted his question now. Having been around Eric for so long, he should have known better. If someone wasn’t drinking at a bar, they probably had a good reason. Regardless of the reason, it was none of Nate’s business. “Sorry man,” he apologized. Again. “I know better. It’s none of my business.” Nate nodded solemnly. He used to be that friend for Chuck the same way Chuck used to be that friend for him. “That’s nice of you. The bartenders here don’t really...” he trailed off, lost in thought. “They don’t really know when to stop,” he finished. “They’ll keep pouring until you can’t ask for more.”

- Elizabeth is about to do something stupid. Nate does not think this is a good idea.

Elizabeth had been very thankful for Nate being able to come see her at Birch coffee, since she needed another’s opinion on the whole ordeal. She had gotten there early, trying to figure out how to go about the odd conversation that was about to take place. She had finally snapped, the family company, or should she say her fathers company had driven her near insane.

She had been on the phone with Harvey, her father, as she plucked their coffees from the counter. “Yes. I understand that but... no. No. Listen, I’m just about to walk in to a meeting with a possible investor.. I’m losing signal....” she lied, setting the coffees at the table as she began pulling the phone away to seem as if there had been a break in the reception. Ultimately, she hung up on him. Rolling her eyes as she did.

She looked up at Nate, with a huff. “So, he thinks I’m meeting with a client..” she stated, sitting down across from him. They had grown to a friendship, it had been nice, being able to talk about her family drama to, and getting someone else’s point of view on things. “I’m sorry about being all cryptic on the phone yesterday.. I was in the office with him lurking over my shoulder.” Elizabeth explained vaguely. “Also, thanks for meeting me.. kinda needed someone to talk to about this.. cause it could potentially leave me without a job...”

Nate wrapped his hands around the coffee, warming them. Elizabeth had fallen into his life. Well, she’d shoved into him and poured her caramel macchiato all over him, but regardless, here they were. Since then, they’d run into reach other enough times that they settled into what he considered an easy friendship. She was funny and driven and a little too impulsive for him, but it was good. She was passionate, and he liked it.

She expressed an interest in politics, so he’d begun to slowly teach her what he knew. There are other people that know way more than I do, he’d explained, but she’d relented. She didn’t want just anyone as a mentor. She wanted him. And it was flattering and could be good for him in the end. He needed a distraction, he’d decided. And maybe he could learn something from her too.

He raised an eyebrow at her and gestured vaguely as if to say get on with it. “You’ve got me on the edge of my seat,” he confessed, leaning forward as if to demonstrate his interest. “What’s up, Liz?”