once I was
Dan/Blair, Vanessa, Jenny. 3208 words.
90s musicians AU.
sequel to half of what I say is meaningless

For stainofmylove!!!

Summary: He turns away from mirrors as much as he can.



Note: I reeeeally wanted to write you Oz fic, but since I wrote this first fic for you last Christmas, I couldn't resist the symmetry of doing a sequel this go around. It's one year to the day, actually, if you ignore the fact that I posted this so late. Symmetry!!!







Dan wakes covered in glitter. He lingers in bed, stretching his arm across the empty expanse beside him and watching as the particles ignite one by one, forming constellations.

Last night Blair came to him all in lilac, with shimmery pastel lids and glossy lips and a pearlescent lilac tinge to her cheeks that made her look slightly ill, or alien. Her long false lashes brushed his cheeks when they kissed. Her dress was plastic and squeaked like rain boots when she climbed into his lap, felt sterile beneath his fingers. There was glitter all over her, and she looked like some kind of space princess. By comparison, as always, Dan was rough and rumpled and muted; as always she left him changed, glittering.

She is engaged to her boyband boyfriend but she insists it's just for show.

Dan sits up eventually and rubs a hand through his hair, over his face. His bones crunch exhaustedly when he moves. He sits slumped in bed, waiting, wishing sleepless nights could somehow not result in such tired mornings, that the glitter on his skin could dissipate as easily as the girl who put it there.

Last night they'd had the TV on in the background, old movies playing. Dan watched Blair brush glitter out of her hair and onto his sheets. "Do you like doing all this?" he'd asked. "Honestly. Does this whole thing work for you?"

Blair had given him a lilac half-smile. "Depends which part you mean."

"The music," he said. "Do you at least enjoy the music?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Do you?"

"More than I'd enjoy being without it."

She set the brush aside and crawled into his lap, plastic crinkling. "I enjoy what it gets me," she said, and then kissed him and that was that.







A week later Blair is doing a set for MTV and Dan tunes in, door to his bedroom shut so Vanessa can't burst in and find him at it. It's not just whatever thing he has for Blair that's motivating him; she doesn't ever play small venues, and he's curious too see what she's going to do with it.

He's surprised to see Blair looking relatively subdued – for her, though still conspicuous by anyone else's standards – in a fuzzy sweater, short skirt. Dan has missed the first ten minutes or so, so Blair is already in the middle of a song. It isn't one of her own, he realizes, but a cover of one of Jenny's. Her voice isn't as good as Jenny's but there's something about it, unpolished as it is in the moment, straining a little and breathy sometimes but still good. Real. There's a spark in her dark eyes, too, and the way they flash from the screen feels almost dangerous.

She brings something to it that Jenny doesn't. Jenny isn't going to like that at all.

Blair smiles a little when the song finishes, a satisfied smile. Later on when he calls her, during the quiet middle of the night, he says, "Enjoyed yourself, huh?"

"Oh fuck off, Humphrey," she laughs.

He's not sure he had anything to do with it, the song, but he's not sure he didn't, either.







Jenny seems to stretch out visually, becoming taller and thinner, all limbs encased in black and hair down to her waist. The girls she runs with now all look the same, all models with thin gray skin and cigarettes between their slender fingers. That Calvin Klein girl whose face is everywhere lately, Agnes Andrews, she and Jenny are practically surgically attached at the hip. It's a world removed from Dan, not one he understands.

He worries about the bruised gray under her eyes, covered up with eyeliner, and worries every time one of those dumb entertainment news segments throws around words like heroin and chic. He tries to bring it up once and Jenny just laughs at him, says, "Yeah, and how's that whiskey treating you lately?"

"That's not the same thing," Dan says, hating that look in her eyes, fearing their father's name might pass her lips in a moment of cruelty. But it doesn't, because Jenny's not like that.

"Look in the mirror," she says. "And try to tell me that again." Then she pushes up her ragged sweater sleeves to show her smooth, unmarred arms. "I'm not on heroin, Dan. Jesus."

He doesn't take her advice. In fact, he turns away from mirrors as much as he can.







The tour they're going on will last six months, maybe more. It will be six months where he will not see Blair, six months in Europe, six months of easily ignoring each other in favor of other things. Six months of Blair's fake engagement to the boybander. Six months of buses and planes and trains, of hotels and sleeping on the road. Dan has never left the country before.

On the plane ride over, first stop London, Dan gets drunk off many tiny bottles and ends up on his knees in the coffin-sized bathroom puking his guts out. When he emerges, pale and shaky, the flight attendant smiles at him and says, "I saw you on the VMAs."

He takes his seat next to Vanessa again, slumping down and pressing his clammy forehead against her shoulder like he's done many times before in his life. But she is stiff and unyielding, so eventually Dan shifts away.

He has begun to feel a gap yawning between him and Vanessa, and by extension the other guys in the band, Aaron and Ben. They feel less and less like a band, more like hired musicians serving out contracts. Part of the problem is that they don't have a unifying name or identity; Dan is indisputably the headliner, whether he likes it or not. It's all in that famous last name of his.

Before he left, Dan had asked Blair if she was going to miss him. It had come out teasingly, joking, will you miss me? pressed into her mouth. In a gesture that surprised him with its romanticism, Blair sat up a little in bed and placed her lips against the flat front of his shoulder, leaving a cranberry red kiss behind. He let it fade off naturally, but he became so conscious of it over that day or so that now it's like a scar, retained through sense-memory if nothing else.







A list of cities on an itinerary doesn't capture the restless, all-consuming exhaustion of touring, the misery of it. It's like being stuck in a time loop or something. Dan is never sure what day of the week it is or what hour of the day, or even where they are half the time. He feels as though he's always just emerging from a quickly snatched nap, drowsy and disoriented.

They rest when they rest and then stumble out to play, Dan's throat feeling raw with overuse and nurtured by cigarette smoke. Afterwards they meet people, all kinds of people, people who just want to see him, know him, ask him questions. Dan drinks way too much because there's always so much of it around and he's so stressed, so tired. He swore to himself that he'd never touch anything harder than liquor but backstage one night he lets someone give him something to snort. The show runs with more energy than he's had in forever, but he is aware of Vanessa watching him with suspicious, unhappy eyes.

You're the one who wanted this, Dan wants to say but doesn't. You put me out there in the first place.

In some hotel room in some city, Vanessa sits half on the balcony, her spine resting against the open sliding glass door. A cigarette is held loosely in her fingers and she blows gray smoke into the cool night. "I know you hate talking about it," she says. "But –"

Dan lies on his back on one of the beds, eyes on the ceiling. "Why do I feel like you always say things like that," he murmurs. "'I know you don't want to talk about it, but.' If you know I don't want to, don't bring it up."

There are a lot of things Dan doesn't want to talk about. His father. His mother. Jenny eclipsing him in every possible way, professional and otherwise. The chasm growing between him and Vanessa. Blair. But tonight it's –

"We're supposed to start recording once we get back," Vanessa says, ignoring him. "You know the second album's more important than the first. It's the one. It's the one that proves it, proves us."

"Then write it your goddamn self," Dan says, reaching down to haul one of the blankets up and over his head.







Dan's father had had one very profitable album but had never been able to replicate its success. It was the first one and it signaled a breath of fresh air in a folk scene gone sour. His dad had written half the music and half the lyrics, but the rest was supplied by the other guys in the band, or Dan's own mother. She wrote poetry that was easily stolen. Still, his dad got most of the credit because he was the face of it, the voice.

After that first album, a string of middling efforts followed. Sometimes a critic would review them favorably but the momentum was gone and Rufus Humphrey was remembered by history as a one hit wonder, if he was even remembered at all. The story of the downward spiral is a familiar one, and it isn't particularly interesting.

Dan doesn't want to look in the mirror and see his father looking back at him.







He speaks to Blair once while he's abroad, Amsterdam or Dublin, who can remember. He's about to leave the hotel to go to the venue and he hasn't showered in definitely a few days, and possibly hasn't slept either. It's hard to say. He sees his reflection in the window and turns away, listening hard to a phone that is crackling and unclear along the line.

"You miss me," he tells her.

"I dialed your number by mistake," she says. "I bet you look repulsive right now."

He smiles a little, a rare feeling. "You miss me," he repeats. "I want to hear you say it or I'm hanging up."

"Nate and I are doing a photoshoot together soon," she says. "I just want to make sure you don't miss it when it hits stands."

"I wrote a song for you," he says. "For your album. You should be grateful, because I can't write worth a damn for myself anymore."

"Good," she says. "I don't need the competition." A static-filled pause and then, "I can't wait to sing it," which is as good as her saying she misses him, really.







Once they're back in the States they delve straight into recording again, though Dan feels that the songs they have are unfinished, un-worked. He shows up to the first session drunk off his ass, feeling along the walls as he tries to keep his balance.

"Are you kidding me?" Vanessa says, furious. "Look, I let this shit go while we were touring, but you're seriously acting so –"

But Dan, drunk as he is, has no interest in her ever-present disappointment. He just laughs, weaving on his feet and careening into Ben, which just makes him laugh harder. "You don't have to be sober to sing," Dan says. "Ask Morrison. Ask Cobain. Ask Dylan, Joplin, fuck – ask Rufus. Ask Rufus if you have to be sober to sing."

He sees Vanessa's face soften a little but he remembers once in a moment of anger she told him he'd never be half as great as his dad was.

"Play the fucking song," he says. "I'm ready."







Dan's on the same label as Blair, amusingly enough, and he ends up at her album launch because of it. But no, he knows that's not all it is: the news of all the input he and Jenny had on Blair's music has traveled fast and extensively. And maybe it's more than even that, Dan realizes, as journalists ask him question after question about his relationship with Blair, about the times they've been photographed together, their genre-spanning friendship – ironic emphasis on friend.

When he catches a spare moment with her during the after party, he says, "You know they're selling us. You and me."

Blair raises an eyebrow, like it's so naïve for him to think that's news. Her look is entirely more muted now, deep plums and murky silvers. A playful little girl growing up into a mature artist – artist in a word they've been throwing around all night, using it to replace pop star. "They sell whatever they've got," she says. "Don't tell me you don't know that by now?"

Dan does but he still frowns, brows drawing together. "That's not what you think of us, is it?" he says. "Another thing to sell?"

"There is no us, Humphrey," Blair says, brushing past him. "Thanks for the tune, though."







The next time Dan performs live he goes out alone first, without telling anyone that he plans to do so. He already knows Vanessa won't be pleased, but he needs to do this, alone in front of all those hyper-attuned faces with his heart shivering on every beat. He sits, pulls his guitar up into his lap and tools around for a minute. "Opposite of an encore," he says, smiles and sees a girl in the front return it. "There a word for that?"

The song he sings is Blair's. Not even one of her love-sweet-as-sugar ballads, but one of her genuine pop songs that he makes slow and melancholy.

It's a mistake only because the public is already on watch when it comes to them. Otherwise Dan knows exactly what message he's sending, and exactly what he means by it.







Jenny watches him with expressive, entertained eyes. "You're a mess," she tells him. "Everyone knows you're in love with her."

"Mm, well. What can you do?" Dan affects a careless shrug, pouring himself a plastic cup of whiskey and frowning at the bottle's label. They're at Agnes' place. Her brands aren't exactly to his taste.

"She's using you, you know." Jenny studies the lift of the cup to his mouth and she frowns a little. "You do know that?"

"Don't worry, Vanessa gives me a talk every other day. I get it. I'm a failure." Dan's gaze strays to the loose-limbed models dancing in the center of the large, empty apartment, pausing only for bumps of coke. The music is loud where they are but low here, on the periphery.

Jenny sighs. "Dan. No one thinks you're a failure."

"It's alright," he says. "I am. It's fine." He glances at her. "And if you say 'we're just worried about you,' I'm leaving."

The smile she gives him then is wry. "Remember when I had to show you my arms?" she says. "The marks on you aren't so easy to see." When Dan doesn't say anything, Jenny adds, "Just tell me if you need help, okay?"

"Okay," Dan says, though he knows he never would.







It feels like whiskey has begun to move sluggishly through his veins instead of blood. His feelings on that are neither here nor there.

Sleepless and sorry, he leaves his Lower East Side apartment one night to walk dark, chilly streets with no clear destination in mind. He ducks into a tiny bar but orders seltzer at the last minute, one of those dumb games he plays with himself when he's pretending he doesn't have a problem.

"Hey, are you–" starts the girl next to him, but something in his expression makes her shut up. It makes him feel bad, but not enough to do anything about it.

The bar has an open mike night kind of thing, so after taking a seat through a couple of acts, Dan gets up there himself. He has to borrow a guitar and he's pretty sure the woman he borrows it from recognizes him too, but she doesn't say anything.

"Uh, I don't really…" he starts, looking down. His hands find strings and chords without consulting his brain much and he just starts playing. He sings nothing of his own devising, just songs he likes, and he loses track of the time but no one stops him. It's just him and the guitar on a little half-step up that counts as the stage, the room growing quiet the longer he goes on. When he looks up again, the crowd has at least doubled, people standing against the walls.

"Well damn," Dan says. "People love free shit, huh?" There's a low laugh. He feels kind of powerful here, alone and uncritiqued. It hits him profoundly, suddenly: the intimacy of the room, the independence of performing without telling anyone or asking permission, the freedom of doing something for himself and no one else.

"Alright, I've got this one song…" he starts again. "It's rough, so be gentle ¬–"







Dan drags Blair from her paid-for penthouse in the early hours of Sunday morning. She grumbles the entire time, wrapped up in a white fur coat in the passenger seat of the rented car. She has sunglasses on, and a hat too. He's never seen someone misunderstand the meaning of incognito so beautifully.

"Where are we going?" she demands. "I have a hair appointment at four."

"Maybe cancel it," Dan says, and drives them out of the city.

Dan and Jenny were born in New York City but Rufus was a transplant, and at some point he'd gone back to his hometown, a place they'd rarely visited as a family during the brief stints of Rufus actually parenting. But Dan has gotten directions and childhood visits to grandparents made certain landmarks stick out in his memory. Blair falls silent as they drive.

Rufus spent a long time in rehab, on and off, but now he lives in a small house with his second wife. Dan has not seen his father since he was fifteen, when his parents divorced. Jenny still sees him sometimes.

"Do you want to come in?" he asks Blair.

She pushes her red-tinted sunglasses up. "Do you want me to?"

"I'm not sure," he admits.

"I'll come," she says decisively. But before his fingers find the door latch, "Dan? Why, um… Why did you bring me here?"

Dan settles back in his seat, looking up at the neat-if-shabby little house in front of them. "I don't know," he says. "I thought about it, and you were the only person I wanted to bring."

They're quiet for a few long moments, radio loudly eating up their silence. Then, briskly, Blair says, "We don't have all day, Humphrey," though the look in her eyes is gentle.

They get out of the car, Blair like a beacon of the unusual in her getup. Dan likes that. He reaches for her hand, which she surprisingly gives. He can feel her acrylic nails when she squeezes his fingers.

He takes a deep breath, and then they walk up the front path.

For dae_dreemer!! Ugh, I miss this show so much, my eternal creys. DAISY ADAIR, THAT GLAMOUROUS BITCH. WHEN RUBE WOULD CALL GEORGE 'PEANUT' AND ALL OF US WOULD CRY. Georgia Lass spoke to me so much when I was a tweenager but she speaks to me more intensely now that we are essentially the same, minus the death bits. ALSO REMEMBER HOW CUTE MASON IS. I got kiiiind of distracted with the George-Mason-Daisy of it all but ugh I miss all these characters so very much. Re-watch time tbh.

and summer will not come again
Blair, Dan, some Chuck. 5305 words.
W: depression, abusive relationship, mentions of suicide and miscarriage
1950s AU.

For lookinglassgirl!!


Summary: Blair marries in June of nineteen fifty-six, right after Grace Kelly becomes a princess. She does not marry a prince.


Note: I've had the idea for this fic forever but couldn't make myself get it down until now, for whatever reason. I was never quite able to get over the image of Blair being all sad housewife in a big fluffy Betty Draper dress and Dan as her Ginsberg-reading, Buddy-Holly-glasses-wearing gardener. Very loosely inspired by Far From Heaven. Also I know I fell behind in prompts and stuff, but only because I got so distracted with this, lol. I'll catch up though!







Blair marries in June of nineteen fifty-six, right after Grace Kelly becomes a princess. She's twenty years old. Grace Kelly was twenty-seven. Blair does not marry a prince; she marries an exciting, unsuitable man with buckets of money. He puts her up in a beautiful house and calls it a castle.

The first year of their marriage is spent traveling. Blair is blissfully happy, except for all that business at the Hôtel Royal Barrière with that maid – but Blair isn't going to waste her thoughts on that, considering Chuck was really very sorry. Their time abroad is some of the most invigorating in Blair's memory, for Chuck is like no one else she knows, tempestuous and unpredictable, and he lavishes money on her like he thinks it will never run out. And she doubts it ever will.

They settle back in New York eventually, in that house he calls a castle. Chuck maintains an apartment in the city in addition to the house. He needs to, for business. Blair had been under the impression that they would both remain in the city after their marriage, but apparently she had been mistaken.

Her mother is making her look at paint swatches for the nursery when they get word that her father has been found dead in a hotel room, alone and shot in the head.







Blair is at the kitchen window looking out into the backyard, where the last gasp heat of August has already begun to leech moisture from the leaves. She has nothing to do. Blair is not the person who cooks or cleans, they have Dorota for that, and she's already decorated the entire house twice over. She has no hobbies. Her entire school career had been so focused on grades and getting ahead that she hadn't really thought to develop any. It feels childish to flip through movie star magazines and tear out the pictures she likes, and that was how she always spent most of her brief, cherished leisure time as a girl.

She watches the gardener at his work outside. He's new. Blair hadn't been the one who hired him. He's her age, or around it, and she hasn't been able to get a good look at his face yet. His back has been to her this entire time. She can tell he's slightly built, with dark hair that just barely curls. He's got on a light blue shirt, very nearly bone-white in the sunshine, and the sleeves are rolled up. It sticks to his back a little, right along his spine.

Blair drifts out into the backyard. The sun is pleasant on her cold skin, melting the cobwebs the big, dim house seems to leave on her mood. Her crinoline petticoat brushes scratchily against her legs, even with the stockings. It took her so long after the funeral to get back into her usual dresses; at the time she'd missed them but now she misses her nightgowns and housecoats, misses curling up beneath her blankets.

It's childish. The time for grief has passed, or so she keeps reminding herself.

"Alright there, Ms. Waldorf?"

Blair starts, raising her wide-with-surprise eyes to meet those of the gardener, dark behind his black-framed glasses. He has gloves on, and dirt freckles his bare forearms. She knows she ought to reprimand him, and she would have in the past, but what comes out of her mouth is, "How did you –?"

"We went to school together," he says. "Sort of. I take it you don't remember me."

Her brows draw together slightly. "You mean you were at school with my husband."

His head tilts in assent. "I was there on scholarship."

She's sure she doesn't imagine the hint of bitterness there. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I've forgotten your name…"

Definite bitterness there in the line of his mouth, his lips that press together tightly for a moment. "Dan Humphrey, Ms. Waldorf."

He pulls off a glove to shake her hand. His is very warm, damp with the perspiration that also casts a sheen on his forehead. Blair swallows. "It's Mrs. Bass," she says, more archly than she means to. "Or ma'am, if you prefer."

"Oh, I don't know," he says, moving back towards his work, away from her. "I like the old name just fine."

Blair watches him go, privately just appalled.







Chuck hires people to do everything.

The nursery had hardly been put together before it had to be taken apart, but neither of them had been the ones to do it. Someone Chuck hired packs up the baby clothes and dismantles the cradle, peels off the wallpaper and paints the room a blank off-white. It is a guest room once again, startlingly and suddenly bare of all its meaning.

Blair never liked that room.

She was supposed to get as much rest as she could following the incident, especially as it came so quick on the heels of her father's death. And though she did rest, it was always without sleep; she was simply stationary, sedentary, listless. She would catch a few minutes or hours each night, but always woke before her alarm was set to go off. Then she would lie there, counting the minutes until its shrill ring would pierce the gentle morning. Sometimes her husband was beside her, but mostly he was not; that's how it always is.

There is a crack down the ceiling of their bedroom that Blair keeps meaning to have fixed. It hangs directly over her bed, all metaphor.







The gardener takes his lunch promptly at one. Blair wouldn't mind supplying it like she does for any other worker who comes by the house, but he never asks; instead he sits in a corner of the garden and eats a sandwich he's brought with him while he reads a book. Blair doesn't mean to watch him do this, it's just that her bedroom window overlooks the spot that he favors, and Blair doesn't have much to look at generally, unless she chooses to rot her brain in front of the television.

As September becomes October, a predatory winter chill enters the air. The gardener has added a light flannel jacket over his customary work shirts, very red against the greenery going autumn gold.

She brings him out a cup of coffee one day. He looks up at her from his spot on the ground not with surprise, exactly – more a sort of confusion, threaded through with something sardonic. Blair finds herself nearly stammering for an excuse, settling on an arch, "It's just I didn't want you freezing to death in my yard."

A slight smile crosses his face then, beneath those heavy glasses and messy dark curls. "I'm not sure it's that bad out here yet, ma'am."

The way he says ma'am is mocking; it makes her bristle.

"What are you reading?" she asks.

He gets to his feet, brushing off his clothes a little before he gives her the book, a very small text with a black and white cover. As soon as she reads the title, Howl, Blair nearly drops it as though burned. He has the gall to laugh.

"It's just a book," he says. "Perhaps you'd even like it, if you read it."

"I prefer poetry that isn't filthy," she says haughtily.

"All good poetry's filthy," he answers easily. "Even the pretty kind that rhymes."

"I just can't imagine you at school with my husband," she says. "He never said."

"I suppose he thinks it's something of a joke," he remarks, but then remembers the propriety that's been lacking in him all this time, "If you'll forgive me for saying so."

Blair doesn't quite understand what he means. "Well…" she says. "I have things to attend to. Please do bring the cup in when you're finished."

Much later, after he has left for the day, Blair goes into the kitchen to find the mug sitting on the counter beside his book. Breath seeming caught in her chest, she picks up the slim volume. A note is sticking out from amongst its pages, which she removes to read.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts, Ms. Waldorf.

His penmanship is blocky and harried, and the note is scrawled on a torn-out sheet of notepaper. Blair looks at it for a long time before she crumples it in her fist and throws it out.







Blair has a college degree. Blair was always top of her class. She was a charming presence at parties, and she always threw the best ones, coordinated to the absolute last detail. She was always the most responsible person in any room and as much as that could be a curse, it was also who she was. She was in control of her world, even if now she realizes the span of her world was not very big at all.

Now she cannot even be trusted to make herself toast, or entertain her mind for longer than a few minutes.

Her friends are all in the city still, even the other married girls; they all have their apartments for a year or so as is customary until they have children. Chuck is almost always in the city too, at that job he took with his father that she never expected him to take. Blair used to go in more often herself, for shopping or lunches, but the train ride seems so exhausting now.

She calls Chuck, standing in the dim foyer with the deep red rug at her feet, both hands curled around the phone, dressed and waiting for him. "Darling, it's already half past seven, are you –"

"I have a dinner meeting tonight, you understand," he says, voice low over the phone.

"You didn't say," she says.

"I must have forgotten." Tossed off so easily. "I'll be home tomorrow."

Blair has barely said another word before she is greeted by the spiraling dial tone, which she listens to a minute too long only because she's taken aback by the brusqueness. That night she won't eat dinner and in the morning she'll have too much of her breakfast.







The gardener comes three times a week.

Blair has had to confess to herself that she hadn't entirely forgotten him from school. She hadn't known his name, of course, but there was a reason his face was so familiar to her. She had to pull out Chuck's old yearbook to really make the connection: that same angular face but without the glasses, hair much shorter and neater, expression less sarcastic. She thinks he might have gone out with Serena once or twice – but then again, who hadn't?

She has made all sorts of annotations in that book he lent her, neatly printed and in red, like how she used to make notes when she was in school. He flips through it when she hands it back, seeming amused, and then tucks it into his jacket.

"Did you come to like it?" he asks.

"I'm not sure," she says. "Appreciate it in parts, perhaps, but I found the language overly complicated and unnecessarily vulgar."

He smiles at her. "All those notes and you've still boiled it down to 'filthy,' huh?"

Blair frowns. "It's all well and good for you to read that sort of thing, but we both know you'd have no appreciation for Dickinson or Woolf or Keats –"

"Why, because of the job I do?" he asks. "Because I have a good deal less money then you do, and my name never made the society papers? I had the same education you had, even though I still ended up working for your husband."

Blair still ended up a housewife, though hadn't that been her aim all along? "What did you mean," she says, "when you told me my husband hired you as a joke?"

"We never liked each other much," he says. "I think it amused him to give me a job."

Her brow furrows. "I don't understand why you would choose to be employed here, in that case."

He shrugs a shoulder. "I said it was a joke to him. I don't feel shame over what I do."

For some reason she thinks he might be lying, but she doesn't press it. That afternoon while he's working she leaves her copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover for him, with her own note.

I contend, Mr. Humphrey, that good literature can be filthy after all.

Her hand had shook a little as she wrote, but the letters look fine on the page.







Dorota is insistent about Blair getting out of the house once in a while, so she puts herself together in one of her nicest day dresses and goes to the library.

Blair was always the sort to read the books everyone said should be read, so she had, in many ways, lost track of her own taste. When she was much younger, she'd liked things that were sweeping and romantic, with lots of descriptions of dresses, but now she's after something more melancholy.

It's his jacket she sees first, the red standing out amidst the gray and brown of the little town library. She steps up beside him, pretending to read the spines of books on the shelves.

"Is reading all you do, Mr. Humphrey?"

"When I'm not working, Ms. Waldorf," he says. He betrays no surprise at seeing her, which rather puts Blair out, as she'd been hoping to catch him off guard. "Is reading all you do?"

"I suppose so." Firmly, she says, "I'm trying to keep my mind active."

"It can be a nice escape," he offers. "If life is not quite fulfilling all its promises."

It feels pointed, but she tells herself there's no way he could know so much about her. "Is that the case for you? Are you unhappy, Mr. Humphrey?"

The smile he gives her is wry. "I'm not exactly overjoyed," he says.

It almost wrestles a smile out of her, too. "Let me see what you've got there," she says, reaching for the books already in his hands. He almost starts to turn away to prevent her reaching them, but Blair gets the books before he does so. She sees almost immediately that each on is by an author she named to him the other day. He seems embarrassed, and that makes up for his earlier lack of surprise.

"I thought I might take in a movie this afternoon," she says. She does not invite him, but leaves him to follow her.

They go to see Raintree County, Blair attempting to conceal any excitement she may feel. She'd seen A Place in the Sun while she was in high school and loved it desperately in the way she always loved wild, romantic things like that – a little more than she should. Monty Clift's accident had upset her very much when it occurred and she feels trepidation at the thought of seeing his changed face.

But by the end of the film, that's the least of her worries. She hadn't liked it, had in fact been left profoundly unsettled by it, so unsettled that she doesn't wait for Mr. Humphrey in her desire to rush from the theatre. She presses a hand to her throat, freeing the scarf there, and to her cheeks, wiping away tears. Something about Liz Taylor in that film, something about that spoiled, selfish, mad girl had upset Blair to an impossible degree.

Mr. Humphrey catches up to her. She tries to hide her face from him but he appears not to judge her, merely holding out a handkerchief. "Not a fan, I take it," he says.

"I much –" Blair takes a breath. "I much preferred their other film together."

"I agree," he says. "But I imagine for different reasons."

She looks at him curiously. "Why's that?"

"I don't know, a feeling," he says, glancing at her. "I think your reaction is more personal, and mine more critical."

"Perhaps," Blair says. "Or perhaps you're just acting superior again."

He laughs. "There's nothing wrong with being personal."

Blair doesn't remark upon that, merely handing back the handkerchief. The initials on it are not his own, she notices – J.H. instead of D.H, with a little flower beside it. "Are you married, Mr. Humphrey?"

"You can call me Dan, you know," he says. "No, I'm not married."

"So you just carry ladies' handkerchiefs around in your pocket?"

He laughs again. "It's my sister's, and you're very nosy."

"I suppose I am," she says, privately pleased.

Blair has to take the train back to her rather remote house, but Dan lives here in town, so he offers to walk her to the station. "What scene did you like best?" he asks. "In the other one, their other film."

"Oh," Blair says, "I suppose when they're dancing, before everything's gone wrong. When he tells her he loves her."

"I could have guessed it'd be that," he says, but not meanly.

"Am I so obvious?"

"I don't know," he says. "It seems to me you're a romantic sort of person."

"How can you tell?"

"Well, I'm one too."

"You're also very presumptuous."

"Presumptuous as you are nosy."

They're at the entrance to the train station, and Blair is oddly reluctant to part. "Thursday, then," she says.

She fancies he looks reluctant too. "Thursday, then," he repeats.







Chuck has not been home for two days when Blair hears his key in the door, his footsteps in the hall. She knows them by sound, knows the way he walks. She knows from the dragging of his feet that he is probably drunk. He often comes home drunk, because working with his father is such a trial for him. For some reason today it makes her testy instead of sympathetic. Maybe because she finally admits to herself that he has not been at work for two days.

When he enters the bedroom, Blair does not turn from her vanity to look at him. She asks, "So what was her name?"

"What?" His voice, too, reveals his inebriation. If she were any closer, she could probably smell the liquor.

"Your girl," Blair says. "Your girl in the city. I know you've got one. I'm not stupid." She brushes her hair slowly, carefully, eyes on her own in the mirror. She wears it shorter than Chuck likes it. She needs to have it set again.

"Don't know what you're talking about," he mumbles.

"Yes you do," she says, annoyed. "I don't mean to bruise your fragile ego, but you're not as adept at hiding it as you think. I haven't forgotten about our honeymoon, you –"

But he must've come closer than she thought, because she feels his hand rough on her upper arm, jerking her around so they're facing one another. "I don't need any nagging from you," he says.

Chuck Bass is the runs in her stockings. He tore apart her perfect little life and she liked that, once.

"Let me go, Chuck," she says quietly.

But he doesn't. "Do you know what I heard?" he says. "I heard you were seen out with a man in town."

Blair freezes. Who could have seen them, in this little poky suburb?

"Apparently he saw you to the train," Chuck says, as if reading her mind. Ah, she thinks; one of the neighbors ratted on her, then. But of course it's always possible Chuck hired someone to watch her, like he hires people to do everything else.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she lies, but she knows it came too late. She used to be better on her feet. "A man asked me for directions, but it was hardly –"

"You're lying," Chuck says, and shakes her. "I know you're lying. Who was he?"

If she gives up Dan then Chuck will fire him and she won't get to see him at all anymore. "I swear, Chuck, it was just some man who asked me directions, that's all."

He releases her so roughly she knocks into the vanity table a little, but she's almost glad to have it to steady her.

He keeps her up all night. This is Chuck's way, generally, to talk and talk and talk things like this out. He punishes her with what she wants, openness and conversation, and twists it into interrogation, robs her of her sleep. He presses her with all kinds of questions, pries into her day: what isn't he doing for her? What doesn't he provide? Hasn't he given her everything she ever asked for? Hasn't he made her the happiest she's ever been? He does all that, and she treats him like this?

By the time morning comes, Blair is so exhausted it's like her skin is going to vibrate right off her body. Chuck goes to work. She sleeps a little but is too wound up to do so properly, so instead she catches up on the local charities she gets involved with sometimes, meets with other women to plan a gala, and arrives back home to find Dan packing up his truck to leave for the day. She had forgotten it was one of his days.

"Ms. Waldorf," he says brightly when he sees her, and he smiles. And for some reason that makes Blair burst into tears.

He seems startles but nevertheless moves forward to comfort her, probably reaching for that same handkerchief. But Blair steps back. "No, I'm fine," she says, "I'm just tired, I'm – thing have been difficult with my husband –"

He doesn't touch her, but he does still hold out the handkerchief, which Blair takes after a minute. "Can I suggest something?"

She dabs underneath her eyes but the sobs are still locked in her throat and she can't swallow them down. "Yes, sure."

"I'm going into the city tonight," he says. "With my sister and some of our friends. Would you like to come? It might help to take your mind off things, you know. A change of scenery… And I could drive you right home, you wouldn't be out too late."

Blair shakes her head a little. "I'm certain I wouldn't fit with your friends."

"Give it a try," he says.

Blair ought to say no, but instead she gets in the car with him.

They run by his house – his mother's house, he says, with some embarrassment – to pick up his younger sister. She's got quite short hair and a lot of eye makeup on. She looks askance at Blair as she climbs into the car, but accepts Dan's explanation of Blair as a friend of his.

Blair thought she might be out of sorts in her navy dress with its full skirt, her gloves and little yellow hat, but she hadn't realized just how out of sorts. The place Dan takes her to is a rather run-down apartment with various hip types spread out lounging or smoking, talking about art and life. They can't be very different in age than her, but she seems twenty years older than them in her sensible dress and heels.

One of the girls, Vanessa, is dressed in a peasant top and skirt, her hair loose and curly. "Bringing your work home with you?" she asks snidely.

Dan just rolls his eyes and takes Blair's coat. "Don't mind her," he says. "She's just tough at first. Not unlike yourself."

"You're not doing yourself any favors making that comparison," Blair says, and he laughs.

She does relax a little, having a drink and arguing with these insipid hipsters, and then Dan takes her out on the tiny fire escape to have a cigarette.

"Will your husband be angry that you're out?" he asks evenly.

"Oh, of course," Blair says. "But I doubt he'll know. I can't imagine he'll be home tonight."

More hesitant, "Because you had a fight?"

Blair looks at him. She takes a slow drag. "In a manner of speaking."

Dan tilts his head. "What does that mean?"

She shrugs, and her gaze slides away to the street below. The pavement is wet with earlier rain, crowded with trash. "I really loved him," she says. "I loved him so much I couldn't breathe." There is a slow pause. "It's hard to remember why."

Silence stretches between them, Blair beginning to feel she's said too much, but then Dan flicks some ash away and asks, "Are you going to leave him?"

Blair blinks at him. "Excuse me?"

He won't meet her eyes. "I thought, maybe –"

"Whatever you're thinking is completely, utterly wrong," Blair says, ignoring the note of desperation in her own voice. She leaves him out there, climbing back through the window and hardly noticing when her skirt snags and tears.

She gets a cab to Serena's apartment and spends the night there.







Blair fears Dan will give his notice, though she rationalizes that there would be no reason for him to – nothing passed between them except assumptions. Nothing more than that. However, he continues to arrive and do his work, and Blair continues to watch him from her bedroom window.

A week of silence between them passes. Then she discovers he had left her copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover in the kitchen, with a note scrawled right on the title page. I am indeed presumptuous, it reads. Please forgive me.

Something catches in her throat at the words.

The next time he's there, she leaves her little tower and goes down to meet him, all the way across the considerable length of lawn to the edges of the property where there are mostly trees. He's raking up all the brown and yellow and red leaves, creating a large dead pile of them.

"Do you remember the scene?" she asks, "From A Place in the Sun?"

"Jesus." He starts, hand on his chest. "You're real quiet, anyone ever tell you that?" It's flippant, but the look in his eyes is worried.

"It starts with dancing," Blair reminds him. "And Elizabeth Taylor asks if he's happy."

It was on television recently, so perhaps he watched it. Blair had, thinking of him the entire time.

"He says he's got a secret, or something," Dan says, taking off his work gloves. "No; he's holding something back."

"Yes," Blair says. "And he tells her what it is."

Dan looks at her for a long moment, maybe wondering what game she's playing. But she truly isn't playing one at all, for once.

"Blair," he says.

She wants to hear him say it because she can see it on his face, ridiculous as it is for him to feel that for her, to feel anything.

"You'd better tell me," she says gently. Her hand sets lightly on his, and his first finger moves slightly to cover hers. "Dan ¬¬–"

He pulls her to him, against his chest. Blair looks up into his thin, handsome face, his features telegraphing so much confusion. "I'm not in the habit of making love to married women," he says.

"Perhaps you ought to be," Blair says, before she tilts up and kisses him on the mouth.

Anyone could see them here, anyone could tattle on her – but Blair finds she just can't find it within herself to care. She just wants, wants him, lays down in the leaves with him and hears them crunch with every move. She makes love to the gardener at the edge of her property, the stars scattered above her and bursting within her, under her skin.







She and Dan are in her marriage bed, naked among rumpled peach sheets that she bought during her second renovation of the house. It's the most obvious, dangerous place she could have him, and somehow the safest too. Her castle is a prison too, keeping everyone out as much as it keeps her in, and it's the least likely place for them to be discovered.

It is properly winter now. There is snow on the ground, frosting the windows, and she shivers a little in bed, curling closer to Dan.

"I was glad, when it happened," she's saying, her voice hushed. "I felt so ashamed, but I was. It wasn't that – I didn't want it to die, I just –" Her cheek rests on his chest and her fist clenches, unclenches against his ribs. "I just didn't want to have it either."

He's quiet, his fingers running through her hair. "I'm sorry that had to happen to you," he says.

She pushes up to look at him. "You don't think I'm awful?"

"No," he says. He kisses her cheek, her closed eye, her brow. "I know how difficult it can be, for women."

It would have been enough for her to have him listen, since no one ever does, but his understanding means a lot besides.

"Have you thought about what I asked?"

Blair sighs, turning away a little. "I've told you I can't."

His lips brush against her neck. "I know it'll be hard," he says. "And not what you're used to. I can't – I couldn't give you a house like this, or anything. But I would do everything I could to make you happy, that's all I want."

Blair has been wondering lately what that would be like – to not be given things, but to take them. She used to have no qualms about that. She thinks perhaps she was aiming too low.

"I'll think about it," she allows, voice quiet, and Dan kisses her like that's victory enough.







"Chuck," she asks, twisting her wedding ring around her finger, "Do you remember when you said you loved me?"

He glances up from his paper, looking at her warily across the breakfast table. He still expects the worst from her, she can tell; he expects this to be some act of manipulation, but she's just after the truth. "Yes. Of course."

"It was before I was going to marry Nate," she says. "Almost right before."

"Yes," he says.

"And I wondered why then," she says. "I mean, it was very nearly settled. I had been trying on dresses. I had been picking colors. It was so close, and right at the very last moment you told me, so I left all of that behind."

He gives her a curious, suspicious look. "Do you regret it?"

Yes and no, she thinks. "I was just wondering why."

"I knew I was going to lose you unless I did something," he says, a suitably romantic answer.

Except.

Except Blair has begun to think, lately, about always being in danger of being lost. She was lost when her father died. She was lost when she lost her baby, and felt such shame over her relief. She was lost each time Chuck went to other women and she was lost the first time he grabbed her so hard it left bruises.

"Thank you, dear," she says. "I was just wondering."







It's a silly thing to do – the ring is so very expensive, and beautiful too, and it would be a better metaphor to throw it off a bridge – but Blair still slides her wedding ring off and drops it into the toilet, then flushes.







Blair leaves in the middle of the afternoon. She leaves behind more than she anticipated, but as she was packing so much of it began to feel meaningless, superfluous. It's difficult to pack when you don't know quite what you're packing for. So she only takes what is absolutely necessary and leaves behind the rest for Chuck. For someone Chuck will hire to pack it away. Dan still makes fun of her for how many suitcases she makes him load into his truck.

She watches the house in the rearview mirror until it becomes indistinguishable from the rest of the houses on the long block. Then she doesn't look back at all, reaching over to thread her fingers through Dan's.

For blahblahcakes64!! This is not really what you asked for, lol, but I was having a little bit of difficulty with your prompt, so I really hope this works for you instead! It's kind of...depressing, but this is just suuuuch a DB song for me and I think it suits them so well. I looked at the picspam from a kind of...post-s5, Dan-looking-back-on-things kind of way, which I'm not sure entirely telegraphs in the graphics. But now that I have thoroughly lowered your expectations, enjoy!

Also, if you want to listen to the song during, here is a link to the original by the Smiths and the parfait cover by Jeff Buckley that haunts all of my dreams. (I prefer the cover, personally.)

super rich kids
Tripp, Carter. 1981 words.
Pre-series.
For tahitianmoon!


Summary: Tripp wonders what that's like, to spit in the face of the plans someone made for you.


Note: Set a few years before the show, so Tripp is roughly twenty-two and Carter is about eighteen.






Tripp's not sure what Carter Baizen's doing here, because Carter Baizen never comes to these things.

His family is always invited, of course, and with exceptional hospitality since Grandfather and Judge Baizen had been at law school together. Tripp has never particularly liked the Judge, though that's at least in part out of wariness, since the man is so cold it's difficult to even offer him a hello without feeling cowed.

But Tripp is especially surprised because he'd heard Carter had just been kicked out of St. Jude's for some elaborate crime he's sure is half-false, though Nate had had an awed respect on his face as he recounted the gory details.

"You know that was wrong of course, if it's true," Tripp said, and Nate looked appropriately chided.

Tripp's never had much interest in Carter anyway.

Maureen and her friends are happily entertaining Blair and the other younger girls, bragging about sororities and all that kind of thing. If Tripp hears the word school ever again it'll be too soon, though he knows that for the rest of the night all he'll have to talk about is his graduation and his internship and law school coming up in the fall. He switches from champagne to scotch; that'll help.

At some point there's a slight commotion on the other side of the room and Tripp looks up to see Carter being hauled out of the room by his father, hand tight on Carter's upper arm. The Judge looks furious but Carter is laughing, unrepentant. Tripp's gaze follows back to where they'd come from – a group of other Harvard Law alums, the nearest and dearest, Carter's father's friends.

Tripp is honestly surprised they haven't sent Carter away to boarding school or military school, since he knows both have been threatened for years. And despite himself, perhaps out of boredom or curiosity, Tripp starts to drift towards the foyer where the Judge had led Carter. The quartet at the party blocks out any noise but the closer Tripp gets the clearer the hissed retribution is.

"– consistently an embarrassment, how do you think your mother –"

"She'd have to be sober to notice –"

"Stop it," said with such force it could not be ignored. "Either you clean yourself up and get yourself together or you can sit out the rest of the night like a child."

With a kind of gross, pointed dirtiness, Carter says, "I'll be a good boy, Daddy, I swear."

The Judge bangs back through the door unexpectedly, coming face to face with Tripp, who responds with an automatic grin.

"It you'd like, I'd be happy to look after him, your honor," Tripp says with what he hopes is playful charm, and he gives the older man a little salute for good measure. The Judge is flatly unamused.

"Fine, thank you, Skip," he says, brushing past. Because of course the man thinks his name is Skip, he's only known Tripp since he was born.

Tripp ducks into the room to find Carter perched on sideboard at the far end, lighting a cigarette. "You're not supposed to sm–" Tripp starts and then gives up. "Can I have one?"

Carter gestures him forward, then does what must be one of his moves: lighting two cigarettes at once before holding one out to Tripp. "Didn't realize you smoked," he says.

"Maureen doesn't like it, so I quit," Tripp says, and then takes a drag.

"I gotcha, buddy." Carter winks at him, which Tripp doesn't like very much. He did quit, only sometimes he gives in. Just every once in a while. Now and then.

"Your dad might be more terrifying than my grandfather," Tripp offers, leaning back against the table next to Carter. "And that's saying something."

"Nah, he's all bluster," Carter says. "I guess that's why he seems worse. But he's got no real power, at least over me, and that fuckin' kills him."

"I don't know," Tripp saying, glancing at him. Carter certainly seems wound up. He's also already moved on from this conversation, it seems, pulling a vial on a long chain up out of his shirt (unbuttoned at the collar, no tie) and unscrewing the top, doing a bump.

His eyes shut and he smiles and without opening them, he asks, "Do you want any?"

Tripp's own eyes widen. "No thank you." Then, "What did you say to them? You know, that made your father so angry."

Carter shrugs. "I don't know, whatever," he says. "I'm always saying something I shouldn't." He looks at Tripp with eyes that only now seem bloodshot, though the tiredness etched in his face is days old. He's younger than Tripp by a handful of years but he carries himself like he's lived three times as long. He closes up the vial of coke and drops it back under his shirt, cigarette stuck between his fingers the whole time. A little ash cascades onto his lapel. "He was making plans for me in front of them like it was anything that was actually gonna happen and, well, I've never liked that much."

Tripp wonders what that's like, to spit in the face of the plans someone made for you.

"Well, you know all about it, don't you?" Carter continues. At Tripp's confusion, he extends his hand and offers pompously, "Carter Spencer Baizen, the second."

"Ah," Tripp says with understanding as he reaches out to take the proffered hand, "William Turner Vanderbilt, the third." They both huff a private little laugh and Tripp goes, "Carter Spencer, that's an interesting array of sounds."

"Fuck right," Carter says. "A name so shitty they had to use it twice."

It sounds like someone might be coming into the room so they escape through a side door out into the main hall. The entire Vanderbilt compound is just doors and hallways and rooms and passages, all built on top of each other like a maze. Tripp hated this place growing up. He was terrified of it. Even now he doesn’t really know his way around, he's just better at swallowing his fear.

"Should I be leaving breadcrumbs?" Carter asks.

"It's probably best if you don't," Tripp tells him.

Carter expresses a desire for pot, so Tripp leads him to the second library, where he keeps his stash in a hollowed-out copy of The Old Man and the Sea. Carter pokes around the books while Tripp rolls the joint, does some more coke, and starts reading dramatically aloud from King Lear until Tripp takes the book away and replaces it with the weed.

"So tell me," Carter says. "How's married life treating you?"

"We're not even engaged yet."

That makes Carter laugh. "Ah, see, yet," he says.

Tripp rolls his eyes. "Maureen's great."

"I'll bet." Carter sprawls back across one of the library desk, heedless of anything on it. "She's pretty, though, I'll give her that. And girls like that are good in bed. Real pent-up. They got a lot to prove."

Tripp gives an involuntary, horrified laugh. "Jeez," he says. "Can you maybe not say things like that about my girlfriend, or any women?"

Carter grins at him, a sneaky sort of grin. "Sorry, boy scout. Am I wrong?"

Tripp has never thought to categorize Maureen like that; they get on pretty well and he's never had any complaints – on that front, at least. "I'm a satisfied man."

"You know," Carter says, "I know it's, like, written in stone that thou shalt wed another little WASP such as yourself and birth two and half perfect WASP children with her, but I always thought you were gay." He lifts the joint to his lips. "Like super gay."

"As opposed to regular-strength gay," Tripp says wryly, reaching to take the joint back.

"Mm," Carter agrees.

Tripp takes a seat at the desk, looking at Carter's profile. "And what made you think that?"

"Probably because you're so goddamn uptight," Carter says. "And because I've fucked a lot of guys like you."

"Oh really?" Tripp says mildly.

"Yup," Carter says. "Good little rich boys always likes to slum it with me."

"You used to be a good little rich boy yourself," Tripp tells him. Up until the time Carter went spectacularly off the rails, maybe a year or so ago, maybe longer, he'd had a well-cultivated image, like most of them did. Butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth, at least not around company. But he'd always had a sleaziness, a smarmy quality, like a salesman. Even as a young kid. They'd half-known each other since forever, but Tripp thinks the first time they really spoke, he'd been eighteen and Carter was fourteen and Tripp had felt like he had to check for his wallet afterwards, that it could have been lifted that fast by that slick kid.

"I liked to dress up as one," Carter says. "But I'm one of those ones you toss back if you can – the bad egg."

"It seems like you don't exactly mind it," Tripp says.

Carter tilts towards him with another smile. "We all got parts to play, huh, golden boy?"

Tripp chafes a little under that epithet. "That's not really fair."

"Why not? It's what you are. Perfect little William Vanderbilt the third, picking up where the father failed to leave off." Carter ticks things off on his fingers as he goes. "The fucking – fucking whatever it was, that academy in Andover, Yale undergrad, internships with every firm that owes Daddy a favor, a pre-pre engagement with whoever it was they picked out for you, you've never been in trouble in your whole goddamn life, and – what is it, Harvard Law or Yale?"

Tripp purses his lips and says stiffly, "Yale."

"Point made."

"Look, you don't know me that well –"

"Seems like I know you extremely well."

"All those – those facts don't explain me any better than it could explain you if I brought up your rap sheet."

Carter laughs, pleased, and pushes up so he's sitting, legs hanging on either side of Tripp's. "Actually I think my list of crimes would sum me up pretty well."

Tripp rolls his eyes, feeling a little huffy. He really doesn't like Carter very much at all. "You're oversimplifying everything. People are more than the places they go or the mistakes they make."

"That's real interesting, Congressman," Carter says. "And if that goes well, Mr. President, right?"

Tripp frowns at him. Carter hadn't listened to a word he said. "I should get back to the party," he says, getting up. "Excuse me."

But standing has brought them into very close proximity. Carter lays a hand gently on Tripp's chest, then curls his fingers loosely around Tripp's tie. "Now, now," he says softly. "I didn't mean to make you all upset. It's just some teasing."

"You're a little close," Tripp says.

"I was just sitting here, babe," Carter says. "Not my fault you got pulled into my web."

Tripp sighs in some annoyance but Carter responds with a smile, shifting so he's even closer, and he kisses Trip lightly – right at the corner of his mouth, not on his lips.

"What are you doing?" Tripp says.

"Don't play stupid," Carter murmurs. "We both know why two people slink away from a party."

Tripp could argue that but he's kind of exhausted by Carter already, so instead he kisses him, hand on Carter's stubble-rough cheek. Carter laughs a little, pressing so close he's practically off the desk. One arm goes around Tripp's neck but the other snakes down to cup him through his trousers, a startlingly fast move.

"Shit," Tripp says, and Carter laughs again, then slides off the desk to his knees. He pushes Tripp back into the chair and then his hands are on Tripp's belt.

"If you're gonna go into politics," Carter says, "You should probably get used to being blown under a desk."

F I C
gossip girl
plant lavender for luck; blair, serena, dan, georgina; practical magic au
a girl who was a city; dan/blair, post-s5; for ms_mmelissa
once I was; dan/blair, vanessa, jenny; 90s musician au; for stainofmylove
and summer will not come again; dan/blair; 50s au; for lookinglassgirl
super rich kids; tripp/carter, pre-series; for tahitianmoon

the hunger games
sonata undine; finnick
you lose yourself, you reappear; gale/johanna
living is easy with eyes closed; gale/madge
a walking study in demonology; johanna/katniss
love poems never make sense to me; haymitch/effie
the history of class cinema; everyone; classic hollywood au



M E T A
prince char, ella enchanted
lawrence selden, the house of mirth
lestat and louis, the vampire chronicles



G R A P H I C S
fanmix: love songs for dickie greenleaf; for lusimeles
thirty day movie meme
one girl in all the world; buffy summers; for earnmysong
better you die than I; katherine pierce; for lisal825
I want my life back!; dead like me; for dae_dreemer
I know it's over; dan/blair, post-s5; for blahblahcakes64

S T A T S :
fics: 29. Last year was 54, so that's a noticeable drop.
  gossip girl: 13
  the hunger games: 7
  misc. (rpf, movies, etc.): 9
ships: 21-ish; it's hard to tell because I'm a multiship fiend
gen pieces: 7-ish; again, multiship fiend
threesomes: 1
AUs: 9
female POV: 12
male POV: 17
most written character: Dan was the lead or supporting character in 10 fics
most written ship: Dan/Blair with 8 fics




O V E R A L L :

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
Less! I guess I thought I'd write the same amount each year and/or end up topping myself, so I was pretty surprised that I'd only written twenty-nine fics. Felt like more.

Did you take any writing risks this year?
Maybe with writing more RPF and other unfamiliar fandoms, but eh. Not really. I did write more original fiction, though, which I guess was a risk, for me.

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?
My eternal goal is to finish my WIPs. I am beginning to lose faith in myself, however. I feel so bad dropping any of them but I've just lost interest in 'be my heater' and that is literally the only one I ever get asked about. Idgi, I reread it recently and there are so many things I wish I could do differently, which is at least in part why finishing it is tripping me up.

And as always I need to be writing more femslash.




B E S T   A N D   W O R S T :

My best story of this year:
hollywood's dead. I actually kind of wish I hadn't posted it, haha, so I could use it in an original project I'm planning. I had so much fun writing it and I'm super proud of it, I consider it one of my best in general.

My most popular story of this year:
I think 'and summer will not come again' seemed to do pretty well.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
I don't know if it's the most under-appreciated, but I thought 'off to the races' (the Dan/Blair/Beatrice fic) would get more attention than it did.

Most fun story to write:
'age of dissonance,' probably, at least in part because the majority of the work is already done for me, haha. But I really love re-working already-existing texts for fic because it's like putting together a puzzle. I also like what it can reveal about both the text and the characters that are being inserted into this other world.

Story with the single sexiest moment:
'flowers and sonnets and drinking poison's fucked up sexiness works for me but possibly not for everyone lol. Also 'perfume cognac lilac' was pretty good, I liked how that one turned out, sex-wise.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
'even cowboys get the blues,' which was a Royal Tenenbaums, Chas/Eli thing. Partially because it was nothing I ever expected to write, and partially because I had never delved into that movie in a fic-writing way, I felt like it really revealed new things about everybody involved for me.

Hardest story to write:
Hmmm maybe 'plant lavender for luck'? Just because it was so long and I'm a person of limited patience. Also, since it was based on a movie, it was pretty plotty and that was difficult as I usually just write character-driven things. I had to really power through it.

Biggest disappointment:
I was pretty cool with everything I wrote this year.

Biggest surprise:
All my Hunger Games fics! It's not a fandom I ever anticipated writing fic for in a big way but the latest movie must've unleashed something in me, haha.

Most unintentionally telling story:
Hm. 'hollywood's dead,' probably, since it's the closest to what I go for with my original work.




W I P   T E A S E R S :
These are the only things I am currently actively working on:

without a key, 4/5
Dan is calling again, and again Nate hits ignore, turning up his music as though doing so will tune out his brain.

needle in the hay, the ds pseudo-incest fic
Serena wears a glittering dress to the party, too short over pitch-black tights and boots. Everything about her glitters and when she links arms with Dan she leaves gold sparkles all over his left side. Her smile is wide and beaming and white, shiny with lipgloss, and she tells him not to worry. Dan lies, says he never worries, and that makes Serena laugh, gold-tipped finger reaching out to smooth the furrowed knot between his eyebrows.

bachelorette, based on the movie of the same name
It's just the back of his head, the stupidly familiar back of his head; he's talking to Aaron of all people, who was invited practically by accident along with the rest of Blair's family. But then he turns, profile coming into view, and Blair swallows hard, almost angrily – because yes, stupid awful Dan is still awfully handsome.

with the cruelest of intentions, an AU of guess what
Serena raises her eyebrows even as her eyes follow the path of Blair's fingers. "I thought you didn't fuck girls."
Blair bites her lower lip, pushing the waist of her skirt a little lower as she turns toward Serena. "I might be convinced." Then she rises abruptly, hopping off the bed. "Provided, of course, that you can get the little hipster into bed."




R E C   L I S T :
There is a much more extensive rec list in my 2013 scrapbook, so please go over and look! But I will shamelessly pick favorites for the year.

you are the blood flowing through my fingers | stainofmylove | katherine pierce; thg au
“You’re a survivor,” she wraps her hands around his neck. “Like me.”

“No,” he grips her wrists tightly, but does not try to stop her. Yet. “I’m a coward.”

Breath skipping, slipping, straining, a needle reaching the end of the record but still spinning obstinately on, “Same thing.”

old fashioned way of speaking | stainofmylove | dan/blair
Dan wonders how many gifts he can accept from Blair before he’ll have to start considering himself a kept man; he’s come to dread the looming possibility of Blair slipping a pair of keys to a tasteful midtown one-bedroom into his jacket pocket.

In his imagination she’s also smoking a cigar.

take my arms that I might reach you | gyzym | gob bluth/tony wonder
"Wait," Gob says at some point. "If neither one us has syphilis yet, does that mean we're being… uh, what's the word for 'only having sex with one person?'"

babylon | epistolic | johanna mason
Really, she has done nothing: met a pack of wolves on her way towards home in the forest, like something out of a fairy tale. She is twelve. She’d had an axe with her and hadn’t quite known how to use it. She is still bleeding, bleeding all over these steps she cleaned just this morning, she’ll have to clean them again. What a waste.

untitled | lusimeles | serena/dan, superhero au.
He’s the kind of kid that looks good just a little beat up, all pale skin and ski-slope cheekbones and pillowy lips. You reckon he’d make all the right kinds of noises if you bit down just a little too hard against the long white column of his neck. There’s longing for pain in those dark, nervous eyes.

but how long will you stay with me, baby? | portions_forfox | dan/blair
Dan slides down a wall in an (almost) empty hallway, tilts his head back and tells the Queen Bitch that his mother won't come home. And she tells him more or less the same.

She's pretty, isn't she, Dan remembers thinking, her rich dark hair curled in flawless rings of brown, her small pursed lips slick with shiny red gloss that made her look far younger than she'd ever aim for, and he remembers thinking, She's pretty, isn't she, because it was easier than thinking any further than that.

on ne peut pas fabriquer la vérité | portions_forfox | harry/hermione
“Nothing, it’s just so—normal.” Hermione nearly froze cold at the use of the word. Her legs ceased kicking in the air, and she sniffled once. “‘Why’ve you called?’” Harry repeated gleefully. “It’s something Muggles say to each other all the time. We’re just two Muggles having a chat over the phone.”

Hermione started to chuckle, just a bit. “We could easily be just that,” she said. “You in your uncle’s house on Privet Drive, me with my parents here in Lancaster. Just this morning I bought an apple juice at Sainsbury’s with lunch. An apple juice, Harry. And I bought it in pounds.”

“That’s not half as bad as me,” Harry returned. “Did I tell you I’ve been watching telly lately?”

lately i’ve been waking up alone | portions_forfox | matt damon/ben affleck
A moment of silence falls and Matt turns around to throw a couple more things on the table while Ben looks at the back of his head, the blond hair curved around his ears and the freckles on his neck, big and brown and creased over the careful lines in his skin. The way his cross necklace fits all metal and gold around his neck, even though he’s not a Catholic, even though he’s still not sure what he believes and he’s said so to Ben sometimes late at night when it’s dark and they’re talking deep, the way he wears it just because. And when Matt turns around Ben’s there, towering, his face close.

This essentially the highlights of my 2013 scrapbook, with pictures. Please do check it out though it you wanna see more stuff, but mostly because there are a lot of fic recs there and good fic should be read! Also lol most of this stuff was not even from 2013, but what can I say, I'm forever on a time delay.

The last movie left me shipping Katniss/Johanna with such a mad intensity that I am frankly appalled I never realized the shipping potential while reading the books. For some reason all of their similarities had not occurred to me, maybe because their reactions to those similarities is so deliciously antagonistic. I think that's really what did it for me tbh – that their first instinct is to claw and fight and dislike each other intensely, because god forbid either of them have actual feelings or make allowances for anyone. There is a gorgeous line in a jada_jasmine fic that goes: "Seven is full of forests too. Johanna thinks Katniss forgets that." AND IT PUT EVERYTHING INTO SUCH PERSPECTIVE FOR ME. Seven is full of forests too! Katniss and Johanna come from the same stock in many ways, both sort of naturally brittle and tough women who don't want to let people in, though it manifests in such totally different personalities. Johanna is sly and manipulative and exhibitionistic and viscerally angry whereas Katniss is much more self-contained, swallowing all of her emotions instead of spitting them furiously at people like Johanna does. Which is why neither of them can deal with each other, and also why they can ultimately understand each other. And why they should make out.







01. dance or die.janelle monáe.
keep on running for your life cause only one will survive
war is in the street and it's an eye for an eye
run on for your life or you can dance you can die

telling lies and telling lies will put your face on fire
run and tell your friends to never dream, never win


02. credit in the straight world. hole.
you take away my time, my peace, my empathy
no babies sleep on atrophy


03. black tongue. yeah yeah yeahs.
let's do this like a prison break, I wanna see you squeal and shake



07. amazon. m.i.a.
it's all this for revolution

can I call home
please can I go home


08. television.natalia kills.
the silence, the violence
we don't need to be forgiven
your business, go mind it
cause this ain't fucking jerry springer
we say our lines, we do the time
we're just like on the television

where I'm from it all goes wrong
it's not like on the television
the darkest days don't fade away
can't turn it off like television
they laugh and they wave
behind the glass they're there to stay
but our script, it don't fit
you know the bad guy always pays


09. sink. iwan rheon.
you are, you are, you are on my side
in the war, in the war, in the war in your mind
and you try and you try and you try to be free
that's something, that's something, that's something to be

I'm working on some longer fics right now and it's all dragggggggingg and I'm sorta lacking inspiration, so I figured I'd steal my favorite prompting format from my girl stainofmylove and hopefully something fun will spark!

I'm still taking prompts over here if anyone wants to mosey on over and leave some!

lesbian much
Jennifer's Body. Needy/Jennifer.
Pre-movie. 1908 words. NC17.

Summary: Jennifer has a tattoo on her ribs that she somehow talked her divorcé dad into paying for for her last birthday and her hair is pitch black against her tan skin and she looks kind of like a lingerie model, but dangerous.


Note: Written for the porn battle. Prompts: horny, skinny-dipping, tits, vibrator, wet.





Jennifer's family has a summer place because Jennifer's family is fucking rich, and she takes Needy up there for the weekend. Needy thinks it's going to be just them but it ends up a huge house party, because of course. It's the weekend before the end of the school year so it's not like Needy can even fake having to study when all they're going to be doing in class is worksheets and movies until the blissful last day. And Jennifer would never let her sit out a party anyway.

The house has a sprawling porch that leads down to a small rickety dock and, from there, a massive lake with a still surface that Needy has never punctured. She's creeped out by the lake, the murky blue-green depths and the things that must live in it.

Jennifer just rolls her eyes at that and tells Needy to – quote unquote – put on a bathing suit, bitch. Jennifer's is obviously a bikini, shiny hot pink with deep red edging that stretches over her breasts because it's probably at least half a size too small. Jennifer has a tattoo on her ribs that she somehow talked her divorcé dad into paying for for her last birthday and her hair is pitch black against her tan skin and she looks kind of like a lingerie model, but dangerous. A little heart necklace hangs down between her breasts with BFF printed on it; Needy has the same one but it's hidden by her suit.

"Needy, you look like a fucking nun," Jennifer says, and snaps the strap of Needy's navy blue one-piece. "Well, tits aside. Nuns probably don't have nice tits."

During the rager itself, Needy sips from a red cup Jennifer poured for her and makes a face in between each swallow. She's half having a conversation with Jamie from AP Calc and half focused on Jennifer in the distance. There's the usual semi-circle of boys on one side and a gaggle of girls at Jennifer's back but she looks characteristically bored by all of it, catching Needy's gaze every so often to roll her eyes.

At some point when Needy looks over, Jennifer is in the water amidst some aquatic roughhousing, laughing in that distant way of hers that doesn't show in her eyes. The next time Needy looks over, Jennifer has lost her bikini top, probably thanks to some asshole boy; Needy is already rising to march over there and raise hell, but because Jennifer is Jennifer she hardly blinks. She backstrokes luxuriously, body slipping pale through the water, long black hair made glossier as it streams around her and sticks to her skin. As though to make a point, she unties her bottoms and throws them carelessly back towards land, twisting in and out of the water like a mermaid. Needy swallows hard, sits back down, presses her thighs together.

Of course it sparks a trend and a whole host of naked people charging in after her. Needy would honestly rather get gored – it's not that she has a problem with this kind of this so much as she has no desire to be naked with ninety nine percent of their class.

It gets drunk and messy and boring after that, so Needy retires to Jennifer's pink bedroom and flops onto the bed, sighing.

"I wondered where you went." It's Jennifer in the doorway, naked and dripping, her nipples pebbling in the central air. Jennifer is so obnoxious to look at sometimes because it's like someone already went over her in Photoshop, made her colors pop brighter and her edges blur out alluringly. Aside from the childhood scars on her legs there are no marks to mar her perfect skin, no ingrown hairs like Needy gets, no pimples, no tan lines.

"Anita, you're pouting," Jennifer says, shutting the door behind her. She twists her wet hair up and wrings it out carelessly over the carpet. "Everyone'll peace out by tomorrow, don't get your onesie in a twist because you had to go to a single party."

"It's not that," Needy mutters darkly. She pushes her glasses up and off so she'll stop looking at Jennifer and Jennifer's tits and Jennifer's ass and Jennifer's perfectly waxed porno pussy.

"Look what I got from my slut cousin Tiffany." Jennifer had been searching through a dresser drawer for a new bikini, if the teensy ice-blue fabric crushed in one hand is anything to go by, but that's not what she wants Needy to look at. Held aloft in her free hand for display is a shiny purple something with a hot pink base. Needy puts her glasses back on so the blur reforms into what it is – a vibrator.

Needy sort of laughs, because it's ridiculous, and when Jennifer switches it on, her giggles turn helpless and wary.

She's right to be on her guard because Jennifer pounces, all boobs and hair, tickles Needy and teases her, prods her and pokes her and jokingly presses the vibrator against Needy's lycra-covered crotch. Needy could play it off like a cool person would, probably, if she put her mind to it, but she is only Needy Lesnicki so instead of being cool she gasps and goes blotchy in the face. It's that more than anything that eggs Jennifer on, a determined crease between arching dark brows. She presses closer and harder until Needy's legs clamp around Jennifer's hand almost of their own accord. The vibrator twitters away mechanically, a decidedly unsexy sound that obscurely makes Needy think of pencil sharpeners – well, it wouldn't be sexy except Jennifer is licking her lips not even on purpose and her nipples are still hard and she wriggles slightly herself, like maybe –

Needy doesn't have time to finish that thought before she's shuddering through a totally sucky, way quick little orgasm that almost hurts a little because her body hadn't even realized it was turned on until it was already over the edge.

That doesn't mean this is done, though.

"Get your habit off, Sister Anita," Jennifer says, hands at Needy's straps tugging roughly. She peels the suit down, revealing more and more faintly freckled skin, freeing Needy's tits and then immediately descending, leaving Needy to wriggle the rest of the way out of the suit on her own. Needy gasps again at Jennifer's full lips around her nipple, sucking hard and insistent, the other one rolled between two fingers with nails painted alternating blue and green.

Needy doesn't know where to touch Jennifer so she just touches herself, middle finger sliding against warm anticipatory flesh, a little too sensitive but in a way she likes because it means it'll be more of a fight to get her over that wall again. She rubs her clit once, twice, and then Jennifer is pinning Needy's hands to the heart-patterned coverlet and snarling, "Don't you fucking dare."

Jennifer grinds down on Needy's thigh a little as she sits back up, fingers closing over the still-going vibrator again. "You're so bossy," Needy tells her but her words curl up in a moan as Jennifer presses the vibrator firm against her clit and then moves it away again, trails it over the seam of her cunt again and again.

Jennifer smirks. "Play with your tits," she instructs. "And that's an order, Lesnicki."

Needy's hands come up to cup her breasts though she shifts her hips anxiously, her entire body below the waist impossibly tense, just waiting, waiting for Jennifer, like always. Jennifer eases the toy into Needy slower than she probably wants, because Needy keeps clenching down way too hard by accident. But once it's in, humming inside her, building on and on to that sweet tension like goddamn Jenga blocks waiting to fall, Needy thinks maybe that second orgasm isn't as far away as it seemed.

Jennifer sucks on Needy's clit with the same determination as she did her nipple, fingers moving quick between her own legs. And Needy forgets about orders because she's got to wrap Jennifer's thick dark hair up in her fists, still damp and smelling like cool summer nights. She pulls until Jennifer has moved up her body again because Needy is not so confused about the where-to-touch thing as before, grasping hands sliding over Jennifer's body, breasts and bend of waist and slick cunt, fingers slipping into Jennifer so easy it's like taking a breath.

"Needy," Jennifer breathes, a little wheedling moan, and presses her thumb against Needy's mouth but doesn't kiss her. Her fingertips dip briefly into Needy's mouth and then return to circling her clit, Jennifer biting her lower lip as she works Needy over. The orgasm, when it happens, seems to start deep within Needy, waves rolling out low in her body and sending her arching into Jennifer, going on so long it's practically unbelievable, nothing Needy has ever been able to wring from her body on her own and she's definitely tried.

When she opens hazy eyes again it's to catch the tail end of Jennifer's own orgasm – which she'd taken it upon herself to finish since Needy was clearly distracted. Jennifer is fucking herself with the vibrator and rubbing herself and Needy only watches breathless, something sort of gross and sort of awesome about that purple plastic toy from slutty cousin Tiffany having been inside both of them. She wants to help but Jennifer is done so fast, and she only gives herself a half-second to catch her breath before she's out of the bed. For whatever reason that kind of hurts, feels weirdly like rejection.

All the slickness between Needy's legs is still so evident – she can feel how wet she is every time she shifts, and she feels so swollen too, puffy. Minutes ago it had been impossibly hot but now it's just awkward and sticky and kind of embarrassing. Needy probably looks visibly fucked, hair messy from tossing her head and color high on her face, splotching over her pale skin. Jennifer just has a little bit of a glow, eyes bright and cheeks flushed. She looks like maybe she just went for a run or something, not like she lezzed out with her best friend while everyone they've ever known trashes her house just outside the door.

Needy still feels edgy, her pulse thudding throughout her body but especially in her cunt, throbbing there so forcefully it's like her body wants to hold onto the memory too.

Jennifer looks over from where she's putting on the new bikini and snorts. "Jesus, Needy, lesbian much?" she says. "You're all afterglow-y."

Needy rolls her eyes. "Not all of us can roll with stuff as easy as Jennifer Check."

Jennifer just makes a kissy face at her. "Afterglow all you want and then come back to the party," she says, hand on the doorknob. "And please put on a real fucking bathing suit, not that Victorian swimming costume." She gestures at her still-open drawer of options, gives Needy a pointed look, and is gone.

The noise of the party doesn't penetrate here on the second floor with the door closed. Needy lays on her back for a long moment just breathing and staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on Jennifer's ceiling, and then she reaches down to gingerly feel her swollen sensitive flesh, slipping against the moisture there, and can't help getting into it again, reaching for the abandoned vibrator still wet from Jennifer. Third time's the charm, or something.

hey lover come and be my alibi
The Hunger Games. Johanna/Katniss.
1057 words. NC17. Set some mysterious time post-series.

Summary: Everything about her is a veiled threat, even if she doesn't know what exactly she's threatening.


Note: Written for the porn battle. Prompts: arch, leather, rip, rough, threat, throat, wrecked.





Johanna is wearing a high waisted leather skirt and matching bandeau top, deep brown fabric catching a shine off the city light. The lines of leather cut her straight across the torso, separating the bony shoulders framing hollow collarbones from the strip of stomach taut with muscle. Finally being well fed hadn't filled Johanna out like it did Katniss; she is still thin and jagged where Katniss has discovered hips, full breasts, a softness to her stomach.

Johanna kisses like she kills, a flurry of anger and determination that Katniss fights as much as she courts. Johanna digs her fingers so hard into Katniss' braids that her nails scrap the skin and the hair becomes loose, tangled. Her teeth sink into Katniss' lip. Kissing Johanna is tasting blood.

When they'd seen each other earlier that night Johanna had been seated on a barstool, leaning back on her elbows with her hips jutting out arrogantly, her spiked heel hooked into the stool. She didn't seem to sit so much as to hover bow-like, fight-or-flight so evident in the lines of her body that Katniss didn't know how no one else noticed.

Now all that tension is being channeled into Katniss as she is shoved against the wall outside Johanna's apartment door. Katniss feels a snarl curl her lip as she pushes back automatically, fingers slipping against skin and leather. Johanna is easily half her weight but her raw fury is more than enough to mask the difference. Once or twice Katniss has wondered what it would be like to fight Johanna and every time it has left her wondering what it's like to lose.

Katniss hauls Johanna closer, hands tight enough on Johanna's upper arms to bruise, and kisses her hard on the mouth. The taste of metal is traded between them, the low burn of amber colored alcohol. Johanna viciously grins and tries to get Katniss' jacket and top off at once, even though they're still outside, and only succeeds in tearing Katniss' thin t-shirt along the seam. Once started, Johanna yanks hard, ripping it practically right down the front, and gropes Katniss' bare breast triumphantly with a long-nailed hand. Katniss gasps, that slow burn sensation seeming to slide down into her stomach and lower, pooling hot right between her legs.

Johanna has the apartment key hanging from a chain around her neck because she said that's the only way she won't lose it. Katniss grabs for it and pulls until the chain snaps, turning in Johanna's arms to get the door open. Johanna only presses closer, hand sliding down the front of Katniss' jeans and fingers pressing hard but not stroking, not moving – just pressure, torturous pressure. She pushes ruined t-shirt and leather jacket off Katniss' shoulder, sinks her teeth into the flesh there. Katniss almost drops the key, can barely get the lock unlocked and knob turned as Johanna's mouth becomes suddenly soft, dragging a slow kiss along the bitten skin and then up over Katniss' throat. Johanna nips her earlobe. The door finally opens and they fall through it.

Apartment is a generous word for where Johanna's living; it's more a mess of clothes in a bare room with something resembling a kitchen attached. She could afford much better. They could have whatever they want, but the trouble is after so many years of wanting so little none of them know how to want anything.

Still, Katniss finds herself drumming up enough sarcasm to say, "Nice place," at least in part to save face.

Johanna just rubs her fingers in slow, hard circles – rough through Katniss' panties, nails sharp against Katniss' nipple. Everything about her is a veiled threat, even if she doesn't know what exactly she's threatening. Katniss is only aware because she is the very same, because she's too used to supplementing desire with aggression for the sake of survival.

There is a low bed under Johanna's piles of clothes and that's where they end up. Johanna tugs forcefully on Katniss' jeans, which used to be too big but now snag at her hips. It's enough to make Katniss' cheeks flare a little bit, because this is probably the most naked she's been with anyone, let alone someone with as critical an eye as Johanna Mason. But Johanna doesn't look critical right now, just hungry.

She pushes Katniss' legs up and apart, mouth on Katniss through her panties, the fabric growing slicker and slicker, Katniss' breathing getting shorter and shorter. The flush seems to heat her entire body, though no longer out of embarrassment; it's hard to be embarrassed when it feels this good, when Johanna is looking at her like that. She tugs Katniss' panties out of the way enough to drag long licks along her pussy, to suck on her clit. Her hand slides up to Katniss' breast again; the combination of a sharp pinch to her nipple and the firm pressure on her clit makes Katniss' body seize up, arching into Johanna's mouth and then slumping exhausted back onto the pile of leather jackets and silk tops and wool sweaters.

And then Johanna is making her way up to kiss Katniss again, a hard kiss that is nonetheless disguising a kind of sweetness that almost seems to make Johanna angrier. Katniss kind of likes that. The idea that she could surprise Johanna in any way is an exciting one, since all Johanna tries to do is catch her off guard. That's what makes Katniss rise up to take control, pushing Johanna onto her back and putting a hand unceremoniously up Johanna's skirt, finding Johanna wet and waiting. This, Katniss knows how to do; she's had enough practice. She sinks two fingers into Johanna and presses her thumb against Johanna's clit, rubbing rapid unceasing circles. The angle is better doing it to someone else.

"Oh fuck you," Johanna laughs as she comes, going impossibly tight around Katniss' fingers. Her hands are wrapped up in Katniss' wrecked hair again, gripping the mussed braids hard enough to hurt.

Afterwards they lie together in a heap, skin shining with sweat, breathing hard. Katniss extracts her hand carefully. Johanna's fingers unclench but do not release and after a not-very-long moment passes, she tugs until Katniss begins to slide down her body and parts her legs with a pointed, "Show me what else you got."

you're breathing in fumes I taste when we kiss
Gossip Girl. Dan/Georgina.
1460 words. R/NC17.

Summary: If she bothers him enough Dan will usually kiss her to shut her up.

Notes: Written for the porn battle. Prompts were: frisky, nails, oral, shower, voice, wall, yes.






When Dan is getting tense and snappish, when his spine has hunched from too many hours bent over typing, when melancholy has its thin hand around his throat – well, Georgina knows there's just one thing to be done in situations like that.

She likes him best when he's a little sullen, which is probably why she chooses to cultivate it with goading and loaded remarks. It just looks too deliciously good on him. His lips were made for pouting, his jaw for clenching. His low voice gets lower, morose and mumbling. It all just puts such a skip in Georgina's step, has her backing Dan up against walls and fingering his zipper. She likes that he never gives in right away; he makes her work for his acquiescence.

She hadn't planned to see him today but he'd been temptingly apathetic on the phone while she was bothering him about final drafts that she invites herself to his apartment, letting herself in with the key he did not give her. She is greeted by the distant sound of the shower. Georgina leaves her heels and her dress on the living room floor before padding silently to the bathroom. She takes a minute to appreciate his silhouette through the steam, and then drums four fingernails against the glass to announce her presence.

Dan jumps. "Jesus," he says, glaring at her. "I thought my life had turned into a slasher flick. I thought I was about to be ax-murdered."

"I'd be more subtle than an ax, darling," Georgina says, though the blood and violence of it does appeal to her. Fingers wrap around the door handle and pull, releasing a fresh cloud of hot steam that she steps under the water still in her underwear.

Black lace wraps snugly around Georgina's tits, just sheer enough for the pink of her nipples to be visible. Her nails are black too, long and gently pointed, leaving white-then-red points of pressure on his chest. She steps into the shower in her lingerie because she knows how the water will look rolling over the swell of her breasts, how the black will offset her porcelain skin under this light, how tendrils of wet hair will cling wetly to black lace. She also does it because she likes how Dan takes it off her: straps and cups roughly shoved down, clasp left for her to undo while he pushes her panties down her hips, hands sliding over her ass.

"Why do you bother pretending you don't want to see me?" she purrs, leaning in close. The water has slicked his hair back and it draws the eye along his cheekbones wonderfully. The shadow of stubble doesn't hurt either.

"I don't want to see you," he says. "Fucking you's a different thing."

She loves it when he's mean. That combined with the panties still caught on her thighs, skin still tingling with his rough removal of them, is setting sparks off low in her body.

"Oh Danny," she coos, "I do love it when you try to talk dirty."

He rolls his eyes, hands closing around her upper arms to pull her against his chest and kiss her. If she bothers him enough Dan will usually kiss her to shut her up. He kisses her with all that never-released anger still coiled up inside him, one hand sliding down to grab her ass again. Georgina knows the key to unlocking that anger is the name of a certain socialite ex-girlfriend, but she'll save that fun for another time; throw the B word around and it loses all meaning.

She breaks the kiss abruptly, his mouth flushed and both of them breathing a little hard. Georgina gives him a little push back against the warm tile wall, fingertips following droplets of water as they tumble down his skin.

He's already half-hard. Her fingers curl around him loosely, giving a slow, almost contemplative stroke. "What do you want?" she asks.

Dan doesn't answer, jaw tightening and lips pressing together. He doesn't like to be so open, at least not with her.

"Something like this?" She trails sharp nails over his chest and follows the bloodless lines with scattered kisses, mouth moving down to his stomach and slightly protruding hipbones. "You're not very communicative, Dan."

She smiles against his skin, feeling his slight intake of breath at her proximity to his dick. He still doesn't say anything but Georgina takes pity on him anyway, giving his hipbone one sharp nip before sinking to her knees. Fingertips pressed into his hips to hold him flat to the wall, Georgina teases him a little, lips against his thigh with just the hint of teeth behind them. His breathing is so slow he might be holding it and she's not going to give in without a groan, a word – an audible sign. Normally she wouldn't really care but Dan is different. Making him give in is the fun part.

She wraps a hand around him again and gives him a few more careful strokes, with hardly enough pressure or much enthusiasm. He fidgets a little and Georgina fixes her mouth to his thigh, sucking a determined bruise onto his skin. The nails of her free hand leave white scratches behind.

Dan doesn't touch her, hands scrubbing over his own face as he mumbles, "Are you kidding me?"

It's enough for the moment. She looks up at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes and smiles before taking him gently into her mouth, hand around the base of his cock. She's releasing him just as soon as he sighs in relief, lips moving along the length of him, tongue flicking out just to taste his wet, clean skin. This close he smells like water and rather heavily scented body wash, the expensive one he's been buying since that failure of a relationship with Queen B. Georgina used to fuck him in college shower stalls and remembers it not being half so luxurious, so maybe Blair was good for something at the end of the day.

She presses her lips to the tip of his cock in something like a kiss, then sucks just the head into her mouth, tongue against that spot on the underside that always makes him shudder. And then she pulls off again.

He does groan, following it with something that might be a strangled, frustrated laugh. "Georgie," he says, which is something else she only likes coming from him, or Serena. "You're killing me."

"You know what I want, Dan," she tells him, hand moving slowly over his cock. "You know what you have to do. Is this what you want?"

There is a lovely flush creeping up his throat that might be partially due to the heat of the room but either way compliments his discomfort nicely. He's fighting with himself a little, hilariously, but after a minute's dithering, he says, "Yes."

"Hm." She sits back on her heels. "Not good enough. Try again." He glares at her. "What? Say it like you mean it and maybe I'll be convinced."

He takes another moment, bottom lip between his teeth, annoyance written clearly on his face. He sighs and shifts, hips restless, and Georgina is really enjoying herself immensely. "Yes," he says again, and, "Please," voice quiet and almost earnest, his eyes all big and brown.

And Georgina is satisfied. She takes him in her mouth again but gives it the proper attention this time, taking him in deep, cheeks hollowing. Hands on his ass to urge him to thrust into her mouth so she can take him deeper, all the way, swallowing around him. She idly wishes there was something here to fuck him with, because Dan could be convinced of all kinds of things mid-blowjob and it was always unaccountably hot when he let her slide something inside him.

Just the thought has her dipping fingers between her own legs while her mouth moves faster between his. She comes too quickly, a moan in her throat vibrating against him and with one more swallow Dan is coming too, one arm over his face, other hand gripping the bar fastened to the wall. He never pulls her hair even though she asks him to.

The weird part is after when Dan sinks down and puts his arms around her, his forehead against her shoulder. Water pounds down around them, considerably cooler now. Dan gets strange about behind held after sometimes even though he keeps himself distant during and Georgina has never been able to get used to it, usually just patting him awkwardly before extracting herself. But every once in a while, like now, she thinks oh what the hell and rests her chin on his shoulder, drapes her arms around him.

Happy (slight belated) Valentine's! Have a sad Dan/Blair mix.


I'd been wanting to do a mix like this for a while, kind of wistful and quiet and pretty sad, yeah. Hopefully not too bad! I think some of the songs are quite sweet, so it won't be too much of a downer. I've been missing this ship extra lately.