Posting stuff no one cares about in the middle of the night! I'm bored and don't feel like trying to write, because I've been pretty unmotivated lately, and I had this mostly ready to go. I am now officially done with this meme and never doing it again, so if you care about your prompt being addressed, look at the tag.







Owen Wilson
The consequence of being a Wes Anderson fan? I remember back in the day Luke was the preferred Wilson because he's slightly less weird-looking but I'm Owen all the way.

Stanley Tucci
I mean, everyone loves Stanley Tucci (how could you not?) so I don't know if this counts but I am generally not into older gentleman therefore I'm counting it. Have you ever seen Stanley in a movie and not been delighted? No. He is always delightful.

Jimmy Stewart
Is this even unconventional?????? I feel like it is a little weird???? People sort of look at me weird when I express just how fervantly I love Jimmy Stewart, because he is pretty doofy. BUT I JUST LOVE HIM. He's so doofy and earnest and tall!

Michael Showalter in the 90s
But like just in the 90s. He's one of my comedy idols but his relative cuteness had a definite expiration date.

Jason Schwartzman
I used to be really into his musical endeavors! I find him so charming? He hasn't done anything major in a while, I feel like, but I always find him very charming. Even when he had a moustache, the least attractive of all facial hair.

bonus: Will Arnett. I've sort of cooled on him but when Arrested Development comes back so will I.





I have THINGS to SAY about how Monty and Marlon, like, needed each other to exist and how they are foils and rivals and bisexual frenemies. I also feel 100% secure in saying they very well might have done it at least one time. They knew each other; they were both fucking dudes in New York City in the 40s. IT'S PLAUSIBLE. If Monty was more currently well known, there'd be a looooooot more rumors about them. Has everyone seen the home movies of them goofing around? YT it, it's wonderful. So many great stories! They both voted for each other for the Best Actor Oscar in 1951 and both lost! They were ALMOST in East of Eden together! Monty went to go see Guys and Dolls and left in a disgusted huff! Brando allegedly tried to get Monty to go to rehab because he felt Monty was the only other actor on his level and if he wasn't around, there would be no reason for Brando to try. BEAUTIFUL BISEXUAL FRENEMIES, NEED I SAY MORE.




Using the movie cast just because. I also have maaaaaany feelings about these dudes and their weird fucked up sexy friendship. I think Kerouac was basically in love with Cassady (everyone was) but he couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it. There's a thing that crops up a lot in Kerouac's writing that one of my professors called "triangulation of desire" (fancy schmancy) which involved two dudes ~sublimating their desire for each other by being with the same woman. Which Neal and Jack did a lot of, not to downplay either of their feelings for the woman in question, because <3 Caroline and I'm sure Real Mary Jo was a cool cat in her way. But yeah. Repression! Fun!




I will basically read anyone/anyone in Marvel fandom just out of curiosity and I am especially down for Steve/anyone (not Tony though). So I was going through a Ruffalo/Bruce phase and searched the pairing on a whim and surprisingly enjoyed it a lot? I hadn't known that the whole reason Bruce got turned into the Hulk was because he was trying to recreate Steve's serum, and I looooove the connection/understanding that forges between them. Better than anyone, they both get how science can fuck your body up and what it means to have your body turned into a whole new thing (though obvs Bruce got the shit end of the stick). Plus they're both such kind, gentle characters that their flirting is sort of shy and wonderful in fics.




Not something I ever thought about until someone prompted it at a ficathon and I wrote it, but I've been really into it ever since. Eli wants to be a Tenenbaum and Chas is so lonely and Eli's ridiculousness can sort of push Chas out of himself.




LOL IS ALL I HAVE TO SAY. LOL @ MYSELF. This is kind of a return to gay ships I liked in my youth (you guys don't even know how hard I used to go for Spike/Xander as a teen) that involve some cocky asshole and a chatty guy with low self-esteem. Whatever. At first I wanted to write it just to see if I could because I think they're both hot, and now I have a forthcoming 16k fic that I have no explanation for.

Also like who do I have to bribe to write Carter/Blair/Dan for me. Just tell me and we'll cut a deal.





ETERNALLY THE FAVORITE SCENE. WHERE IS HER EMMY.




I loooove when Joanie cries in the office partially because it's so rare for her to be that emotional (especially publicly) and also because of one of my other favorite moments, which is:






I can't find a gif of this! But easily one of my Joan scenes ever is when she rips that secretary a new one with beautiful use of an SAT word. I hope one day I too get to demolish someone's self-esteem by artful use of the word egregious.

I know I've been kind of MIA lately for uninteresting personal reasons and I'm having a bit of trouble with motivation and inspiration after being out of practice for a couple of months. This always happens to me around this time of year, but it doesn't ever stop being annoying. So in the interest of holding myself accountable for stuff, in the coming weeks I will try to:

+ finish/post all those fics I've been threatening
+ actually update 'age of dissonance'
+ do another GGA recap, if anyone still cares


Alsooooo one of my goals for the year was to write more Marvel fic but it's less ingrained in my head than stuff like GG so I figured I'd ask for prompts! Here is where my main interests lie:

+ characters: Steve, Natasha, Peggy & Agent Carter crew, Bucky, Clint & Hawkeye crew, Sam, Bruce, Matt, Claire, other people I'm probably forgetting.
+ ships: Steve/Nat, Steve/Peggy, Steve/Bucky, Steve/Bruce, Steve/Clint. Nat/Bucky. Clint/Bobbi. Matt/Claire. Any weird or rare stuff. Part of me is intrigued by the idea of pre-war Bucky/Angie. I'm chill with most things so don't be afraid to ask.

also help i've fallen for matt murdock and i can't get up

Hey, just me, continuing to be an update failure, here to tell you about this:


The second annual summertime fic exchange is upon us! The main fandom of the exchange is Gossip Girl, but it’s open to other fandoms as well! Hop on over here for more into and sign-ups, and feel free to drop any questions in this post, or over on my tumblr, or over on the other mod's tumblr.

Signups open May 1st and remain open until May 15th.

Stories are due August 30th.

Hope to see y'all getting involved! It turned out so great last year so my hopes are high. :)

the best you ever had
dan/carter. dan/carter/ofc. background dan/others.
17k words. nc17.

summary: Having sex in his ex-girlfriend's bed with someone who isn't her is definitely one of Dan's shadier decisions.

note: How did this even happen, you guys. Do you see how many words this is? It is literally just porn. I intended to write a brief Carter/Dan ficlet for no other reason than SebStan/Pfunk would be visually pleasing and look what I ended up with. It also took FOR FUCKIN EVER – almost an actual year, by my count. Set vaguely in the same universe as this fic which means nothing except this is an AU verse where everyone is normal and friends. If you want to read it all in one go, not broken into sections, it's also up on AO3.

Here, have this thing that literally no one asked for.











This is the backstory:

Going home with Serena is neither Dan's best idea nor his worst, but they're drunk enough that it doesn't make much of a difference either way. It's a thing they do sometimes, when Serena can't find anyone she likes and Dan is exceptionally morose. They get to have a nice nostalgic night, no stress and no strings.

Nate goes home alone that night, trying to be better; Blair is dating some horrible stockbroker, so she goes off with him; Dan is moody over Blair's horrible stockbroker, so he goes home with Serena; Serena is just trying to have a good time, which she usually does.

None of which explains Dan ending up in bed with Carter Baizen. But in his defense, it's a difficult thing to explain.







This is the start:

Dan is having a dream about sex, a sex dream, the kind where everything is impossibly clever and sweet, and the girl in his arms is no one he knows but everything he wants. What's clearest about it is the kissing, hot languid kissing that sweeps through him and settles in a knot right in his stomach. It's the kind of dream that feels real but heightened, his skin heating and fingers clenching with astonishing physicality for a dream. A hand slides teasingly over Dan's chest, a voice says –

A voice says: "Beautiful, it's almost eight. They called up with a car."

A male voice.

But what startles Dan awake more than that is Serena loudly exclaiming oh fuck and scrambling over him out of the bed like a very lovely and slightly ungainly cat. This is followed by laughter, male laughter, and Dan realizes a half-second before he opens his eyes that Carter is here.

Carter is often at Serena's in between stints in rehab and mysteriously funded jaunts to foreign countries. She seems to get a kick out of him, though Dan has personally never seen the appeal. He's learned to avoid her apartment when Carter's crashing on the couch, unless he wants to be teased mercilessly about basically everything.

Case in point: upon opening his eyes, Dan is immediately greeted by Carter's wicked grin. "Good morning, Brooklyn. Have a good time last night? It sounded real good from the living room. I had no idea you were so loud."

From the bathroom, Serena calls, "You be nice!"

"I'm being nice," Carter says, mildly offended.

He's tucked up along Dan's side where he crawled in to wake Serena and shows no sign of moving despite having completed his task. Dan wishes he could say it was the first time he woke up to Carter dropping into bed with them. It's probably closer to the fifth.

Carter drums his fingers on Dan's chest and is half-heartedly swatted away. "Were you having a sexy dream, Dan?"

Before Dan can reply in a sufficiently sarcastic manner, Serena re-emerges with her face pink and freshly washed, hair thrown up in a ballerina bun. She's somewhat haphazardly dressed in a sports bra and faux-paint splattered leggings. Carter wolf-whistles. Serena slingshots a hair band at him with surprisingly good aim. "Creep," she accuses. She starts rifling through her drawers for something. "If I'm late for another shoot, I'm going to be in so much trouble."

"No you're not," Carter says lazily, fingertips again tapping over Dan's chest. "You're Serena van der Woodsen. They're probably sitting around staring at the clock and waiting for you."

"That doesn't actually make me feel better." She pulls on a gray hoodie. "Okay. I am leaving now. Don't –"

"Invite anyone over, do any drugs, or set anything on fire," Carter recites. "Which, I might remind you, was both totally by accident and also kind of your fault."

Serena gives him an unconvinced look. "And don't be mean to Dan, alright?"

"I'm just teasing," Carter says, giving Dan's side a pinch. "I won't molest your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend," Serena says just as Dan goes, "I'm not her boyfriend," which makes her laugh a little, declaring, "You owe me a Coke."

Serena takes another moment to survey the both of them, ensconced as they are in her pink bedsheets, which Dan is arranging rather purposefully around his hips while Carter lounges without a hint of discomfort. A curious, almost playful expression crosses her face. She looks right at Carter when she says, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do." And then she's off.

This leaves Dan and Carter behind in her very comfortable bed, which sits in a pool of early morning sunshine that makes it deliciously, invitingly warm. Dan is tired and just this side of hungover, but also very conscious of the fact that he's naked and a little hard whereas Carter is basically fully dressed, and also an asshole. It seems like a bad mix.

It is a bad mix.

"You were having a sexy dream, weren't you, Brooklyn?" Carter asks, voice open and even like he isn't trying to get a rise out of Dan. So to speak. "I could tell because you were moaning a little when I came in. Thought I was interrupting something good."

Indignant, Dan says, "I was not."

"Mm, you were." The fabric of Carter's t-shirt is old and soft against Dan's arm; it's full of holes too, gaps in the gray revealing tan skin. "I touched you by accident waking up Serena, and especially then –" Carter gives him an impression, a low and yearning moan.

Eloquently, Dan says, "Fuck off."

"I can also tell because you've got a hard-on," Carter adds, matter-of-fact. His gaze flicks down, and Dan rearranges the sheets, scowling.

"It's the morning," he grumbles.

Carter's fingernails are a dull, teasing scratch along Dan's ribs. "What were you dreaming about? Our gorgeous ex-girlfriend, perhaps? Reliving the night before the morning after? I can respect it. I mean, those tits alone. Impossible to get out of your head."

Thinking of Serena or Serena's tits is the opposite of helpful at a moment like this. Dan takes a breath. Carter's fingers follow the dip in his stomach.

"Must've been good to make you…" Carter's fingertips are at the edge of the pink sheet like maybe he's going to do something crazy, like push it away or slip his hand underneath. The thought sends a pulse of heat through Dan and really, the sheet isn't rumpled enough to provide much room for denial.

Dan's gaze rounds towards Carter, looking very out of place in this sun-filled, pastel enclave with his black jeans and dark gray shirt, hair rumpled in an on-purpose way, all of it conspiring to make him look as much the bad boy archetype as possible. It would be ridiculous, it would be hilarious, it would be a lot of things if Dan didn't have an erection he was trying to pretend wasn't happening.

Carter looks at him with a kind of teasing intent that makes Dan's skin prickle. "Say something, Brooklyn," he prods. "Did you think I was going to touch your dick?"

There's a beat and then Carter's mocking softens, twisting up Dan's insides. "I could, if you wanted…" His hand moves over Dan's skin so very lightly, hardly any contact but somehow all sensation. "I bet you've got a nice dick. Pretty. Bet it looks real good with those sharp, skinny hips…"

As wryly as he can manage with his mouth as dry as it is, Dan asks, "Are you always like this?"

It's just a jumbling of words. Dan might as well have said blue monkey umbrella tree? for all that his brain is actually processing the things coming out of his mouth.

"You think I'm fucking with you."

"Aren't you?"

Carter shrugs, tilts his head as though to say little bit. But, "Doesn't mean I wouldn't suck you off." He grins that little knife-grin, equally mean and entertained. "Most straight guys don't think that counts."

Dan sits up, grateful for the way the sheet pools in his lap. "Okay, alright, I get it – you're an asshole, you like to pull this kind of shit with me, I don't know if it's deep-seated Serena resentment or just run of the mill rich kid bullshit, but –"

As a general rule, Dan is not that way inclined. The gay way, that is. This is not without some flexibility, though Dan never really examined his sexuality or his feelings about it all that closely. He'd only ever fallen for girls. It didn't feel like something he had to think about.

But when Carter puts his hand flat on the center of Dan's chest and pushes him back against the bed, well. Dan thinks maybe he should've paid it some thought.

"You talk too much," Carter drawls.

"I've been told," Dan says. "Though I think people exaggerate."

The candy pink sheet is now riding dangerously low. If Dan was half-hard before, Carter pinning him down has effectively completed the process. The sheet isn't doing Dan any favors this time, caught under one hip and pulled tight across his lap, and he's clearly straining against it, an obvious outline. Carter's considering gaze sweeps over him. He wets his lips. Dan truly hopes his dick doesn't twitch or anything.

Carter leans in, leans down, and Dan's eyes fall closed as his lips part for a kiss that doesn't come. Instead Carter's mouth lands hot on his collarbone, up over his throat, down over his chest. Carter's lips part against Dan's ribs, trail over his stomach. Teeth appear unexpectedly, little nips and surprisingly hard bites interrupting the soft drag of his mouth. Dan doesn't know which will come next, a bite or a kiss, and it reminds him of his dream: all heat and utterly unreal.

Obnoxious to the end, Carter asks, "This a game you really wanna play, Danny?" His tongue flicks out over Dan's nipple.

"Not if you're gonna call me that," Dan breathes.

Carter smirks. "Alright, handsome," he says, and another wet bite leaves its momentary mark on Dan's skin. "Question still stands."

Perhaps surprising himself less than expected, Dan says, "Yeah. I want to." He says it clearly, without even a hitch.

Another slow smile crosses Carter's face before he says, "Okay," softly, almost soothingly, like he's not a total ass or something. Then he gets serious, hands curling around Dan's wrists so he can push them towards the quilted headboard. His fingertips trace the length of Dan's arms as they move all the way back down to his hips.

And then Carter pulls the sheet away.

The room feels hotter then, and that hitch Dan was missing before seems to have found its way into his throat. He is very naked, counterpoint to Carter who is essentially fully dressed and also subject to a whole lot baggage that is suddenly hitting Dan at once (naked) – like, Carter is another misbegotten love of Serena's life, Carter is a junkie, Carter is generally not a very nice person. He's also a guy, a guy looking down at Dan like he wants to cannibalize him. It's a series of revelations that aren't really revelations at all, and Dan kind of wishes he'd had them before the fooling around commenced.

Not that it would have made any difference. Dan likes to fuck disaster. He's done enough soul-searching to figure that one out.

He wonders why Carter isn't kissing him but is too embarrassed to ask.

Carter seems to be busy giving him an excruciatingly long once-over. "Looks like I guessed right," he says but does not clarify before his mouth is on Dan again, and Dan ceases to care about clarification.

Carter puts himself between Dan's legs so he can lick the jut of Dan's hipbone, sink teeth into Dan's thigh. Dan moans a little, sound slipping out before he can swallow it down, and he feels Carter smile.

"Straight boys are so easy," he says.

He doesn't touch Dan's dick at all, now so hard it curves up towards his stomach, but instead leaves flushed, mouth-shaped marks all over the inside of Dan's thighs; instead takes Dan's balls into his mouth for long, torturous minutes; instead moves lower, closer, curls his tongue briefly against contracting flesh but doesn't do more. Then he pulls away.

"Open your eyes," Carter tells him, so Dan does, meeting Carter's immediately. They're heavy-lidded, sleepy almost, and seem to glitter with dangerous invitation – that's how he looks pretty much all the time, predatory and sexual. But it's never been directed at Dan before now and that is…certainly something. "You've never been with a man?"

Dan pushes up on his elbows, feeling a sudden unexpected buzzing in his limbs when he does so, like his body is an appliance left running too long. "Nate and I hooked up once," he offers, but it was in a gross club bathroom and it never went anywhere, so it probably doesn't count.

Carter snorts. "Sounds like our Nathaniel. That's it?"

"That's it," Dan confirms before adding dryly, "I'm not really in the habit." Carter's hands are stroking up and down his thighs. Dan stamps down on the urge to fidget.

Carter surveys him thoughtfully. "So nobody's ever fucked you?"

"Well," Dan says, "That's a different question."

Georgina had a real thing about it, actually. She went in for the whole deal, strap-ons and everything, and Dan was mostly along for the ride. Not that he was exactly complaining.

Carter is bent double laughing by the time Dan finishes explaining. "Fucking hell. Always knew I liked that crazy bitch." He grins, straightening a little so he can lean over Dan. "Makes my job easier." His hand comes up to cup Dan's cheek, fingertips trailing over the shape of his mouth. "Suck."

Considering he's pretty much in it to win it at this point, Dan parts his lips and follows orders, letting his cheeks hollow as Carter's fingers slide wetly in and out of his mouth. He keeps his eyes on Carter.

"Fuck," Carter breathes. Then, like he can't wait another second, he bends to take Dan's dick into his mouth.

Dan had been over waiting too and the blunt, exquisite end to it makes him arch a little, head pressing back hard into the pillow. One hand clenches tight around nothing and he cups Carter's cheek with the other, thumb moving to feel the stretch of Carter's lips around his cock and fuck, fuck–

And Carter's damp finger is teasing, or threatening, massaging slow circles but doing little else.

Carter pulls off so he can look Dan in the eyes as his finger slides in. Dan's breath catches in his throat even as he tries to keep his body relaxed; it's always an oddly detached feeling at first, some part of someone else in him, but then Carter messily kisses his thigh and it is abruptly hot. Carter's pace is unhurried, though Dan wouldn't think to call it careful or gentle – methodical, maybe, designed to take Dan right to the edge and then leave him there.

Dan finds himself rocking down a little to meet Carter, asking for more without saying a word, and god it's been so long since someone did this to him. Sometimes girls got weird if he asked for it, and doing it to himself just wasn't the same.

"Do me a favor, huh, babe?" Carter murmurs. "Bedside drawer."

Dan barely has the motor skills to open a drawer right now but manages it anyway, finding a mess of girly ephemera like hair ties and lip glosses, Serena's secret stash of candy, and what he assumes Carter is after, a small bottle of lubricant with a bright pink label.

Having sex in his ex-girlfriend's bed with someone who isn't her is definitely one of Dan's shadier decisions, and using her stuff probably makes it worse. None of these moral distinctions prevent Dan from doing anything, though. Oh well.

"This is not my high point, ethically speaking," Dan says, because it should at least be said.

Carter pauses to slick his fingers up. "It's actually pretty good for me," he remarks, and then he's easing two in, giving Dan a very near roguish smirk.

He sucks Dan down again, lips almost meeting the base of Dan's cock, and then pulls up torturously slow. He does it a few times, takes Dan deep in his throat and swallows and then lets him slide out slow, dirty. He does it until Dan is practically clawing at the back of his neck, until Dan is good and flushed, until Dan is taking three fingers and making desperate, ridiculous noises. And then Carter says, "I want to fuck you."

It's not like Dan didn't know where this was going (though a small deluded part of him thought maybe the blowjob-with-extras might be the extent of it), but he didn't anticipate how hearing the words would feel. He's not proud of the sound that escapes him, somewhere between a moan and a hysterical laugh.

"Can I?" Carter's fingers move in and out, and he leans up to bite Dan's throat, his shoulder. "Let me fuck you, huh, handsome? Slide my cock into you. Fuck you so hard you don't remember your own name, just mine, and you scream it."

"Fuck," Dan groans.

Carter's mouth is on his jaw now. "Would you like that? If I was inside you, so deep you couldn't breathe?"

"Oh, shut up," Dan says, eyes shut tight again, and he doesn't know why Carter keeps not fucking kissing him.

"Do you want that?" Carter's lips move over Dan's cheek, his teeth tug Dan's earlobe. "Ask for what you want."

Dan's hands rub through Carter's hair and over his neck, clutch the fabric of his t-shirt. He can feel the muscles of Carter's back through it, solid and tensed. "Yeah," Dan says, crossing that final bridge into giving in. "That's what I want. Please."

He expects mocking but Carter must want it too bad. It's the business of it now, Dan going to get himself ready while Carter locates the condoms, and then they're back on the bed. Carter is impatient and hot as he tugs his shirt off, gets his jeans open. He turns Dan over roughly, pulls his hips back, pushes his shoulders down. It's sudden but Dan is impatient too, resting on one arm so he can use the other hand to stroke himself. He waits, he wants.

"Gonna fuck you into the mattress," Carter promises, voice low. Dan presses his forehead against his forearm, too far gone to feel embarrassment about the way he leans back restlessly. He feels the scrape of denim against the back of his thighs. He feels Carter's hands and then Carter's cock, nudging at him hotter than any silicone he's had in the past. Maybe it's dumb to think but he can't help it – this feels stupidly real, not something he can write off as a game, or something he got talked into. He's not attached enough to his claimed sexuality to have a crisis over this, but it still feels like A Thing, a very real thing.

So panic flares in Dan's chest briefly and he tenses, his body and his brain no longer on quite the same page. He doesn't expect Carter to notice, but he does; to Dan's surprise, Carter pauses, hands running soothingly over Dan's sides as kisses are pressed to the nape of his neck, trailed along his back and shoulders.

"It's alright," Carter says. "You're alright. Aren't you?"

Dan takes a breath. He focuses on the feeling of Carter inside him – overwhelming in the best way and not an altogether alien sensation, just one he has to remember. "You gonna move or what?"

Carter gives him a little bit of a swat. "Try to be a fuckin' nice guy…" he mumbles, but Dan can hear the amusement in it. His hands curl around Dan's hips, firm and steady, and he seems to pointedly take his damn time. Gradually, he pulls out and eases back in, building the heat under Dan's skin until he can barely stand it. He starts to push back against Carter, cutting off each leisurely thrust, and Carter laughs, "Alright, alright," before finally giving it to him hard like Dan wants, hips snapping, pounding into him.

Carter's hand slides up Dan's spine to tangle tight in his hair, tugging his head back. It makes Dan moan, his throat feeling exposed, strained; then Carter's other arm wraps around his waist and hauls Dan up, back flush to Carter's chest. It's probably the most skin-to-skin contact they've had at once. Carter's hand is on Dan's cock over his own, moving fast. Dan is breathless, doesn't feel anything except Carter.

Dan had let Georgina fuck him enough times to get a taste for it but he's not sure he's ever felt this out of himself, this out of control. He barely knows Carter and barely likes him, but somehow he still decided to hand over this part of himself to Carter, for whatever reason.

Carter's rhythm is fast and persistent, roll of his hips driving him deeper each time. He lets Dan drop back down but stays pressed close – his hand over Dan's on the bed, his sweat-slicked skin hot against Dan, that rasp of denim along the back of Dan's thighs. Dan comes like that, spills over his hand and Carter's onto Serena's pink sheets.

Before he's even caught his breath, Carter has pulled out, turned him over, and slid back in again. Dan's moan is probably louder than it was when he came, and he grips Carter's shoulders, his hair, brings his legs up around Carter's waist.

It's not that sex usually ends when Dan comes – he's always a gentleman, ready to lend a helping hand afterwards if he happens to go first – just that he's never really been passive before. He's never experienced something like this, just lying here and canting his hips up for Carter. Just taking it. He's never done that.

So his hand runs the length of Carter's back and slides under the waistband of the jeans he is inexplicably still wearing, grabs his ass. Dan leans up a little to mouth at the line of Carter's throat, his own shoulders and neck straining. "Harder," he murmurs in Carter's ear, voice low, "I can still remember my name."

Carter huffs a laugh. "Criticizing my performance before the show's even over?"

His skin shines with sweat. His teeth sink into his lower lip in concentration. Again, Dan wants to kiss him, but again Dan doesn't do anything except let Carter press him into the mattress. The sensation of it is getting to be too much, that edge of too good that almost hurts. Dan's hip shift up as he moans Carter's name, throaty and trapped. He finds himself playing it up, urging, moaning Carter's name again and again until Carter puts a hand over his mouth with a low, breathless sound of his own.

Dan pushes the hand away so he can tilt up and lick the line of Carter's throat, suck gently on the edge of his jaw. "C'mon, Carter," he murmurs over and over, "Carter, Carter–"

A string of expletives leaves Carter's lips as he thrusts deep one last time, his tense muscles seeming to tighten all at once. It's pretty hot, actually, shoulders and arms and chest solid with more muscle than Dan's got, his lips parting and brow furrowing. Then he collapses heavily onto Dan, obnoxious to the end. Dan trails a hand up and down Carter's back, through his hair.

"Arrogant bastard," Dan says lightly. "You would come from the sound of your own name."

Carter snorts before rolling off Dan, avoiding the wet spot with a wrinkle of his nose. "You know, you're not a bad fuck for a straight guy."

"Gee, thanks."

Carter gives him a wry smile and pulls a crushed pack of cigarettes from his pocket, offering one that Dan declines before lighting up himself.

After a minute, Dan says, "Don't tell Serena?" He hates how hesitant it sounds. "We'll just…clean up." He frowns down at the sheets. "That won't be at all suspicious."

Carter reaches over to pat his chest lightly. "Don't worry. I'll just tell her I brought home a vagrant."







This is what happens next:

It's been a month and a half since Dan's lapse in judgment and he's decided to forget it ever happened – a relatively easy thing to do, considering Carter took off for parts unknown not long after. Serena never said anything about it, so Dan can only assume Carter kept the whole thing to himself. As he should have.

So it's been almost two whole months and Dan is living in semi-blissful heterosexuality, though the only girl he's actually had sex with in that time is Serena, and most of that was her taking pity on him. He's out with her tonight – her and Nate and Nate's sort of girlfriend Autumn and Blair and Blair's stockbroker boyfriend Sean. It's not entirely terrible, despite Dan's mixed feelings about Sean's existence in all of their lives; in fact, it's a pretty nice night.

The bar is crowded and dark and loud like bars are but Dan is just intoxicated enough not to mind. He goes up to get the next round, trying not to lose patience with the throng of jostling young professionals, when he feels someone step up close behind him. Like, too close. A distinct personal bubble violation. And then a familiar voice in his ear purrs, "I want to suck you off." A pause. "Interested?"

Dan instantly remembers everything he'd pretended to forget.

Dan definitely does not lean back into Carter, despite how appealing the idea is, and definitely doesn't heat up when Carter's hand curls around his hip. It's just hot in the bar and hotter here and when did Dan get so gay, again?

It's a good thing the crowd is blocking them from view. Dan turns his head slightly. "Here?"

Carter grins like he's impressed but says, "How far's your place?"

They stay for another forty minutes so as not to raise any eyebrows. Dan watches Carter flirt with both Nate and Serena while simultaneously acting as though he and Dan have never so much as shaken hands. It's both gratifying and irritating.

Carter leaves first and Dan fifteen minutes later. No one looks suspicious except Blair. Maybe not suspicious – curious. Her eyes follow him all the way out the door, the back of his neck prickling under her gaze.

The bar is only a few blocks from Dan's apartment, a Lower East Side walk-up that he used to share with his ex-girlfriend Jane and can't really pay for on his own much longer. He'd like to migrate back to Brooklyn (if only to force his friends to go to Brooklyn) but moving depends on him ever selling another book, which seems unlikely these days.

Carter is waiting outside the building, a slim, black-clad figure against the red bricks with cigarette smoke obscuring his face. It's an undeniably good look for him. Carter has that effortlessly cool thing going that Dan still hasn't quite figured out. He makes himself walk over at a normal pace, since sprinting headfirst into a blowjob would not be his finest moment.

"Didn't mean to keep you waiting." Dan's keys are already in his hands; momentum is carrying him right past Carter and to the door of the building to unlock it.

Carter flicks his cigarette away and pushes off the wall. "Builds anticipation."

Unfortunately there isn't much time for sexy banter while rushing up a five-floor walk-up, and Dan is winded by the time they get to his door. He drops his keys twice, entire body on that too-eager knife-edge, making his movements awkward and stilted.

"Doing this once is fun, but twice is probably a pattern, right?" Dan jokes while he fiddles idiotically with the lock.

Carter steps up behind him, apparently undeterred by Dan's sudden turn into a complete doofus. His lips press against the back of Dan's neck, hands coming around to Dan's belt buckle. "Do you want some platitudes to bring you off the ledge, or should I just –" His fingers are deftly undoing Dan's jeans before slipping shamelessly into his briefs. "Distract you from the sexuality analysis?"

"Jesus." Dan's eyes close and he bites his lip. "I have neighbors."

"Then you better get that door open quick, huh?" Carter says, stroking slow and firm like he doesn't have a care in the world. He probably doesn't. What an asshole.

The lock finally clicks and they're inside, door slamming shut behind them and Carter shoving Dan up against it. His hands roam over Dan's chest, knuckles rubbing over his nipples through his shirt. Then Carter sinks to his knees.

Carter tugs Dan's jeans and boxers down roughly before grabbing Dan by the hips to haul him forward a little, Dan's shoulders still flat to the wall. Carter gets one hand around Dan's cock again, stroking fast until Dan is hard, breathless. He couldn't look away from Carter even if he wanted to. His body is tense, attuned, waiting; Carter wets his lips and Dan sucks in a breath. Carter grins a little, glancing up.

"What did I say? Easy." And then his lips close around Dan.

Now that sex with Carter is apparently something Dan does, he's starting to get a handle on how Carter operates. He is not a time-waster, that much is certain, and not someone who shies away from stating what they want. For a bullshit artist, he doesn't seem to have much time for bullshit. And he reads Dan too well, or maybe it's just that their sexual interests align. Carter knows what he's doing and does it with the kind of expertise born of combined skill and enthusiasm.

It's pretty great, from where Dan's standing. Still morally fucked, but nevertheless pretty great.

There's no buildup, no easing into it: Carter is fast and unrelenting, mouth meeting the hand curled around Dan's dick over and over without pause. With every slide of his lips, he takes a little more, lets it go a little deeper, until his hand flattens against Dan's stomach and his lips touch the base of Dan's cock. Dan isn't even doing a damn thing but he can't seem to catch his breath, scratching at the wall behind him.

"Fuck," Dan breathes, end of it twisting into a groan. That seems to be the only word he's capable of saying, a soft repetition that speeds up when Carter does, gets plaintive every time it's just too much. It's the only sound in the apartment besides Carter's breathing, heavy through his nose.

Dan can't stop watching Carter but still gives a little start when Carter meets his gaze, upturned eyes very blue, all on-purpose faux-innocence. He hums a little around Dan's dick, and that's enough to rouse another sharply helpless fuck. Which seems to amuse Carter to no end.

It's then Dan notices that Carter's got his left hand on himself through his jeans. He realizes dumbly that he hasn't even really seen Carter's cock, because Dan has been the focus thus far, arranged and fucked with little active participation. He wants to see Carter, suddenly and acutely. He wants to touch Carter, wants to taste him, wants Carter between his lips.

"Should've – bed," is all he's able to get out before he has to squeeze his eyes shut and think of England lest the thought take him over the edge. It doesn't help much since he can see it all too clearly in his mind: Carter's mouth on him while his mouth is on Carter, both of them at once.

Carter pulls off briefly to say, "No time," with a painfully hot, hoarse voice. Then he's back at it, only this time he's encouraging Dan with a touch to move his hips, to thrust. A part of Dan kind of fractures and loses it, but the rest of him keeps it together; with one hand on the wall for balance and the other gripping Carter's hair tightly, he lets his dick slide in and out of Carter's wet, flushed lips. Carter lets him set the pace, lets him do what he wants, and he realizes belatedly that Carter has ceded some control only so he can start to jerk off.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Dan moans.

Carter comes first, spilling into his hand with a groan Dan can feel, not as distinctly as the humming but much more viscerally. Then he slams Dan back against the wall once again, holding his hips down as he takes him deep – and Dan is absolutely a goner, Dan comes like he's been jolted out of his skin.

Carter wipes his mouth before pulling himself to standing with a handful of Dan's shirt. He's very close again, their bodies pressed together, and once more Dan is very aware of being half-dressed and wrecked whereas Carter is already zipped up like nothing even happened.

"I wanted to do you," Dan murmurs.

"Not sure you would've had the strength," Carter jokes. "I seem to send you to pieces."

Dan is indeed exhausted, but he still says, "Delusions of grandeur. I could suck fifty dicks right now."

Carter half-smiles with something that might be legitimate warmth before he bends to press a slow kiss to the very center of Dan's throat, right below his Adam's apple. "Maybe you can prove it to me sometime," he murmurs, and then drops another kiss to Dan's cheek. "See you around, handsome."

"What? Already?" Dan's saying, but Carter's gone in a blink, door closing on him while Dan catches his breath, tugging his jeans back up.

His cat hops onto the table next to him and licks her paws, looking at Dan judgmentally.

"I know, I know," he says. "I have no idea what I'm doing."







Two weeks later, in the middle of the night, Dan's buzzer goes.

"It's a tall, dark stranger," comes the low rumble of Carter's voice. "Who wants to stick it in you."

"You're a regular Casanova," Dan says, and buzzes him up.







After a few weeks of radio silence and unreturned texts, Dan finds out from Serena that Carter has gone to Buenos Aires. It explains everything but is also immensely frustrating.

Dan is aware that fucking a few times does not mean Carter owes him anything, but he still thinks a once-every-few-weeks booty call deserves a little heads-up about out of town trips. It's just polite. Dan could really use the tension release this week, with his office job boring him out of his brain and his bookstore job more stressful than it rightly should be – and all those chapters he just doesn't have it in him to write.

It doesn't help that on Friday night Dan arrives at the bar to find both Serena and Nate have flaked, consigning Dan to an evening with Blair and her goddamn boyfriend.

Sean doesn't care for Dan because Dan is a total asshole to him pretty much all the time. He can't help it. Sean is just the kind of guy that it's impossible not to dislike because he's basically perfect, a robot made in a lab specifically for girls like Blair Waldorf.

Sean is four years older, a graduate of both Harvard and Stanford with degrees in business and finance. Blair met him through one of Nate's cousins; apparently Sean's family used to summer with them in Europe. He's filthy rich all on his own, not that it matters considering he's got an entire clan of filthy rich relatives WASPing around over in Connecticut.

Not to mention Sean is polite, thoughtful, good-looking, and athletic. He volunteers with underprivileged children in his spare time. His favorite hobby is kayaking. He spent a year in the Peace Corps. Dan absolutely, unreservedly hates him.

Blair chides him for it the next afternoon when they have a late breakfast tucked together in her bed. No funny business – Saturday afternoon brunch-in-bed is just a thing they do sometimes, a totally normal friend-thing that definitely doesn't mean anything at all.

"You're being ridiculous," Blair says. She leans against him, Dan's arm around her, with her eyes on the television across the way. Today it's Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve. "You never like any of my boyfriends."

The hand holding her coffee cup rests on Dan's stomach; he can feel the heat of it through his shirt. "You never like my girlfriends," he points out.

"That's because you have abysmal taste," Blair says. "Serena excepted."

Amused, Dan says, "I thought you didn't approve of that?"

"Sleeping with your high school girlfriend when you're sad isn't exactly the definition of healthy."

"Nope," Dan agrees. "But it sure is fun."

Blair shifts a little so she can lean more comfortably into his chest. "You're seeing someone now, though, aren't you?"

Dan pauses, and then laughs. "Why do you say that?"

"Because I'm not stupid," Blair says. "She's obviously someone you're too ashamed to even tell your friends about."

Dan takes her coffee from her so he can have a stalling sip. "Who's to say I'm not ashamed of you guys?"

Blair snorts, very ladylike, and stretches luxuriously like a cat about to pounce. Her pale pink robe slips from her shoulders. "Don't be ridiculous."

There are moments when Dan is sort of stupidly suffused with affection for Blair, but he tries to stamp it down and not, like, gaze at her or anything. "You intimidate them all, anyway. Do you know what Janie used to say about you?"

"'I wish I was as charming and stylish as Blair'?" she asks innocently.

"Funnily enough, no," Dan says. Jane actually had a lot to say on the topic of Blair, and Dan's relationship with Blair, and none of it was very complimentary. "She used to say, and I quote, 'the fact that you're friends with a girl like that makes me seriously wonder about you.'"

It's not unlike something Dan himself thought, once upon a time.

"There are plenty of things to wonder about with you, but I'm not sure how that's one of them," Blair says.

Dan's retort is cut off by the sound of his phone. It takes him a minute to find it in the fluffs of Blair's duvet and when he does, he sees it's a text from a number he doesn't know. It reads simply: I'm in town.

Ominous, Dan types back, trying to ignore the shiver of anticipation that slides down his spine.

"Who is it?" Blair demands, sitting up a little. "Is it your new girl?"

"No," Dan says, exasperated, and it's at least truth-adjacent. He puts the phone out of reach so she doesn't grab it. "And even if it was, you are aware that I'm a grownup and I don't need you to approve of the things I do, right?"

"You wouldn't if you could make appropriate choices," Blair shoots back. Which, point.




PART TWO

the best you ever had
dan/carter. dan/carter/ofc. background dan/others.



Dan had anticipated Carter showing up in the vicinity of two a.m. again, so he's surprised when the buzzer goes while he's in the middle of making dinner. He leaves the door unlocked before returning to his food. It's not long before there are footsteps in the hallway, and then a gentle knock.

"Why, honey, you shouldn't have." Carter lets the door shut before leaning back against it, eyes travelling first over the pan on the stove, then slowly over the rest of the apartment, expression neutral. Dan's apartment is a one-bedroom with a joke of a kitchen tucked into a corner of the living room. It's not the greatest, especially compared to where Dan grew up, but it had been nice, once, when he lived here with someone else. It had been homier then.

It's also got some pretty boss exposed brick.

Dan smiles, looking over at him. "As far as you're concerned, I didn't."

"Cute," Carter says as he drifts over. "Real cute." He nods his head towards the food. "So what's going on here?"

"This?" Dan says, "This here is what we call an omelette, the meal of choice for single people with no cooking skills."

Carter whistles low, hand coming up to rest companionably between Dan's shoulder blades. "Fancy. Never knew you were such a chef, Humphrey."

"To be fair, you know next to nothing about me as a person."

"Know some things," he says cheekily, and takes that as an opportunity to give Dan a good grope.

"Wow," Dan says with a sideways glance, "That was stunningly cheesy. That was bad. I was made to understand you had some kind of reputation for seducing people."

"I seduced you alright the first time," Carter says in that low, idle tone he has that really does it for Dan, reluctant as he is to admit it. "Gave it up in under fifteen minutes. I should be able to coast on that for a while, no?"

His hand has begun to move up and down the length of Dan's back in an absentminded way that is probably anything but.

"I don't know," Dan says slowly. "It's not like you exactly lived up to your promises that first time."

He gives Dan's hair a sharp chiding tug before his hand resumes its path. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Dan doesn't look up. "I've had better."

Carter is silent for a moment, absorbing this, and then he says, "Sounds like a challenge to me."

"Good," Dan says, turning, "Because it was."

Against the counter Dan goes, using what will hopefully be the last shred of his rational mind to turn the stove off first. The drawer pull digs sharply into Dan's lower back. He truly could not care less.

Carter's pressed up against him, hands under Dan's shirt skimming over his skin before the shirt is tugged off, tossed away. They're both pretty impatient every time they end up doing this, and it's all yanking at zippers, kicking away clothes. Last time Dan had finally gotten Carter completely out of his, though admittedly it'd been too dark to really enjoy the view.

The view is not something he would have anticipated wanting to enjoy a few months ago, but times have clearly changed. Case in point: Dan pushing Carter the few feet back onto the couch and getting on the floor between his legs. He uses the position to get a little perspective.

Carter naked is pretty great, biceps and abs and all that stuff. Dan likes Carter's body, the width of his shoulders, his muscular arms, his cock – it's not one to write home about, perfectly average, but Dan's finding it hard to express his increasingly positive feelings about it without resorting to bad puns and –

"What the fuck," he says, trying very hard to keep the burgeoning laughter from his voice, "is that."

There is a tattoo on Carter's hip. It is all in black, a tiger or panther or something with a slightly smushed face and a too-long tail whipping around Carter's side to his back. Dan does not understand how he has not noticed it before this moment.

Carter looks down, rolling his eyes. "Cautionary tale," he says dryly. "Decision of a high nineteen year old."

"Do you identify with panthers?" Dan asks and, no longer able to stifle the laughter, turns his face into Carter's knee to hide it. "Do you feel they represent you personally?"

Offended, Carter says, "It's clearly a mountain lion."

And Dan loses it all over again.

It appears Carter likes Dan's body too, though Dan is not going to question the whys of it. He looks fine, he knows that; he knows who and what he is, knows the skinny hipster thing works for some people. Carter apparently does not discriminate. But whenever Dan's fucking someone new he thinks of that one time when he actually thought he looked good, his freshman year when he went to the gym and everything. He always thinks you should know one time I looked better than this. But that's insecurity talking, and these days Dan tries not to give much weight to it. It can just be difficult in moments like this, kneeling in front of some dude preparing to give the first blowjob of his young life.

"Here's a tip," Carter says, thumb pressing gently into the hinge of Dan's jaw. "Contrary to the name, you suck, don't blow."

"Where'd you find that joke, 1995?"

Blowjobs are weird. Not weird weird, just – Dan likes them, obviously, in terms of getting them or looking at them in porn, but putting a dick in his own mouth is definitely weird. He has a split second of confusion when he does it, like, why did he make this choice? Why did he want to do this again? This thing he has no experience doing, that's awkward and unwieldy and –

"Teeth," Carter hisses.

Dan always liked going down on girls. He liked the way they felt and how they tasted, liked having that slick flesh under his tongue. He liked figuring out what each girl wanted and how they were different. But more than that it was just simple physical sensation: making women wet, teasing out their shivers, making them come.

Even thinking about it makes him a little more enthusiastic about sucking Carter's dick.

But after a while it's just, well, repetitive. There isn't exactly much to do except play chicken with his gag reflex and hope he doesn't look like a total idiot. He's certainly got nothing on Carter in this department.

He finally pulls off, looking up at Carter with an unimpressed expression. "This is fucking exhausting."

It's then that he notices Carter has a patchy flush crawling up his tan chest, which is rising and falling rapidly with his breathing. Interesting.

"You need practice," Carter says. "I volunteer to help with that."

"I'll bet."

Carter gives him a lazy grin, gaze flicking over Dan's face and down his body, lingering at his mouth and lower. "You wanna get fucked, you better go get ready."

"Sort of did already," Dan says, though he still starts to stand, because lube and condoms and all that jazz. Carter's got that interested look on his face, like Dan is a pet picking up new tricks all on its own. "You gonna call me easy again?"

"I like easy." Carter shifts forward, hands sliding over Dan's hips, thumbs rubbing over his hipbones. "Never was the kind of guy who got off on a challenge." His fingers roam over Dan's ass. He kisses Dan's stomach. "What do you like?"

Fidgeting just slightly under the attention, Dan says, "I'd like you to hold on five seconds," before he goes to get everything they'll need. He returns to find Carter rather impassively stroking his dick, looking contemplative.

"Come here," he says.

"Kind of the plan," Dan answers, but Carter doesn't just mean here as in closer, he means here as in sit in my lap. Which Dan does, knees tucked on either side of Carter's hips, dick coming suddenly very much to attention despite the somewhat awkward position.

"What is it?"

Dan sets his hands lightly on Carter's shoulders, feeling an answering touch at the base of his spine. "I don't know," he says. "I don't think I've ever sat in someone's lap before."

Carter sits up a little since Dan is leaning away, his lips finding freckles on Dan's chest. "Do you not like it?"

Every little movement brings Carter torturously into contact, never enough to be satisfying but just enough to tease. "I don't hate it."

In response Carter hums a little with his mouth on Dan's skin. Then he says, "It doesn't make you submissive or anything," with one of those annoying little bits of insight he has, "But it's fine if you are, too."

Dryly, Dan says, "Thank you for this after school special moment of learning to accept sexual peculiarities."

"Never saw that one," Carter remarks.

"I don't think that. About myself."

"If you did, then." Having found the bottle of lubricant, Carter is now rubbing slick fingers gently against Dan. "You didn't answer my question, you know."

"Which was?"

"What you like. What you want."

"Uh." Dan feels kind of sheepish answering questions like this, especially with someone's fingers practically in him; that aside, clear statements of desire have a way of making one feel self-conscious. "You could be…meaner."

Carter shifts a little and then his hand tangles in Dan's hair, yanks back hard. His mouth leaves a wet trail over Dan's bared throat. "I sort of figured," he says. "Your boner for Blair Waldorf could be seen from space."

"We're just friends," Dan protests, something he finds himself protesting often, but also it's hard to focus as he rocks back against Carter's hand. He's still not sure he likes himself like this.

Then Carter gives his hair another sharp, nasty pull that Dan hadn't been expecting, and he bears down keenly on the fingers pressing inside him.

"Oh, honey," Carter says, lips curling into a smile against Dan's chest. "You got a real thing, huh?"

"Shut up," Dan mutters. Carter bites his collarbone pointedly.

Carter gives him a break from questions as he works his fingers into Dan until they reach the joint decision that it's enough. It was enough five minutes ago, Dan wants to say but doesn't, still unable to articulate anything that might correlate to ¬– If he said that he wouldn't mind it a little rougher, what would that make him?

Carter telegraphs all his intentions very clearly, giving Dan little wordless touches and signals to get him to move whichever way so Carter can slide into him finally, a slow drag of heated skin that they both relish. But once inside Dan, Carter stills, removes his hands, and focuses on Dan very, very intently. Firmly, Carter says, "Here's what you're gonna do: whatever you want."

He's slouched down further on the couch now, hands resting casually on the cushions and watching Dan with those hazy eyes.

On the tip of Dan's tongue is I want you to get on with it already but that isn't what Carter means. This has to do with that accept-your-sex-weirdness stuff from before; it has to do with Dan not being able to ask for what he wants. There's definitely an added helping of Carter generally being an asshole, trying to rouse reactions from Dan for some unforeseeable end.

But maybe it's something else too, if the patient expression on Carter's face is anything to go by. Maybe he's trying to give Dan a little bit of navigation in this messy thing they've started. Maybe he's trying to help Dan steer.

Dan takes a deep breath. Do whatever you want to do.

What he does first is put his hands flat on Carter's chest, all that waiting muscle under his palms, and readjust the position of his knees. He can feel Carter so much more like this. He can feel Carter so deeply.

"It's all you, babe," Carter says, voice low. What an asshole.

At first Dan feels kind of, well…slutty, grinding down, guiding himself on Carter. He's not sure when exactly it changes from ridiculous to too-hot-to-give-a-fuck, he only knows his head drops back, his breathing shifts, and he stops caring. He stops caring what Carter thinks of him and how Carter's seeing him and what he probably looks like; he knows what he feels like, split and full and feverish.

Like he can't help himself, Carter starts to rub his hands over Dan's skin: up and down his thighs, over his waist and his chest. "I remember what an uptight little thing you used to be," he breathes. "In your little vests. So uncomfortable. So angry. God, if I'd only thought of it, I'd have fucked you then."

Dan snorts. There's a burn in his thighs as he drives onto Carter. "My head would have exploded at the thought."

"That's what makes it so good." His arms go around Dan, giving up his feigned indifference. "You surprising yourself. Wanting it anyway."

"Thought you didn't like a challenge?" Dan takes Carter by the wrist to redirect his attention to his dick. Then he pushes Carter away, back against the couch. "The Dan of ten years ago would have never done this."

"Then I guess I'm awfully lucky right now." His hand moves over Dan's cock quick and skillful, but he otherwise heeds Dan's implied order not to move. Even his hips don't shift up against Dan. "Definitely should've tried to get Serena to have a threeway, though."

Despite himself, Dan laughs. "Yeah, that would've gone over real well."

Carter grins at him. "You never know. Can you picture it?" His hands coast over Dan's arms, which are still keeping him pinned back. He moves Dan's hands a little closer to his throat, soft and relaxed under the press of Dan's thumbs.

"Had one once." Dan's eyes close, not because the memory of it is so great but because it's becoming more difficult to talk and do this at the same time. Carter's thrusting now, but lazily, and his hold on Dan's hips is loose. It's enough. It's all just enough, that sweet impatient feeling seeming endless. Dan feels Carter's throat work under his hands. "Aftermath wasn't so great."

"That's why I like to leave the country after."

"Yeah, I noticed."

Carter laughs. His hand wraps around Dan's cock again, like a reward for being amusing. "Came back, though, didn't I, honey?"

Dan considers just covering Carter's mouth to put an end to the commentary. He wonders if that's how people usually feel with him in bed. Huh. "I realize the irony, but –" He shifts restlessly in Carter's lap and flexes the fingers on Carter's neck. "Stop talking, maybe?"

Carter leans into Dan's touch slightly too hard, speeds up his strokes as he tilts to kiss the underside of Dan's jaw. He murmurs, "You know what I think, Dan? I think what you really want is someone to play tender, not rough."

Dan's grip on his throat is steady. "Oh?"

"Mm." Carter's teeth are at the space below Dan's ear. "I could play good for you. Haven't I been good? I could be so goddamn sweet it'd shatter you. You'd be a mess. No idea what to do with yourself."

Dan wants him to stop but also, obviously, does not. They're moving together harder now, more forcefully, seeking an end; it's close, Dan can practically taste how close it is. "You seem to like telling me what I want."

"Got a bad habit for pushing buttons," he says.

"Pretend I made a sex pun."

Carter smirks even as his thumb swipes insistently over the head of Dan's dick until a sharp sound reverberates somewhere in Dan's throat. The blue of his eyes seems cooler, gray-toned almost, in the light of Dan's apartment and he's waiting, body tensed beneath Dan. Dan can't seem to pull his gaze from Carter, riding his dick in time with Carter jerking him off, and then Carter wets his lips and Dan comes like skipping a step, missing a beat of his pulse. One minute he isn't anywhere near close enough and the next he's a goner, come streaking white over Carter's stomach.

He releases Carter's throat, finally, as that post-orgasm prickly haze descends. Then Carter runs a finger through the mess on his skin and brings it to his mouth to taste; Dan's entire exhausted body tries so hard to react to that, but all he manages to do is bear down on Carter with whatever remaining energy he's got, setting off that orgasm like a flame to kindling.

Dan slumps over to the side, breathing hard, face mashed into Carter's shoulder. "You are too good at that."

"I know," Carter says in a voice both unbothered and self-satisfied. He tilts to meet Dan's half-closed eyes. "I did porn one time."

Dan snorts. "Color me unsurprised."

"Are you trying to imply something about me, Humphrey?" Carter's voice is even nicer to listen to in the aftermath; that way he has of slurring his syllables just slightly is immensely soothing to Dan's muddled brain. "If you were trying to imply I'm a promiscuous fuck-up with issues, well. You'd be pretty much on point."

Dan kisses Carter's shoulder. "I really was not. And that is actually kind of very sad." Serena had a way of doing that too: tossing off very sad things very casually, as though they were nothing at all.

"I know," Carter says, still looking at him. "Beneath this charming, sexy exterior I have a secret wealth of pain."

Dan's lips twist into a little bit of a smile and he brings a hand up to touch Carter's mouth, the smooth bow shape naturally downturned at the corners. Then he kisses Carter, tired and unthinking.

But almost immediately he pulls back. "That was… Have we not done that before? Have we not kissed before just now?"

Carter takes a long moment to think about it, brow furrowed. "Might not've."

Kissing is generally a big deal for Dan. Girlfriends have poked well-meaning fun at him about it, but he can't help it, he just really likes to kiss. So even though Carter is Carter, it is distinctly unlike Dan to have had a whole lot of sex with someone without kissing them once.

So Dan leans in to kiss him again, to make up for lost time.

Carter kisses like he does everything else in bed: forceful but just the right side of pushy, directing but not demanding. And filthy, too – Carter doesn't bother teasing, just gives it all he's got, open-mouthed, messy, filthy kissing.

He's just slipping Dan some tongue when a sharp pain in Dan's leg makes him jump, and he looks down to see the cat innocently flexing her claws on him. She meows and then kneads his skin again, needle-sharp.

"Someone wants attention," Carter says.

The cat is named Sylvia. She's all white with blue eyes, a small pink nose, and the weighty judgmental stare of all cats. She had been a gift for Blair originally, until Blair decided litter boxes were simply too repulsive and gave her back. She's still technically Blair's cat, really, only she lives here. Dan explains all this to Carter, who has reached over to scratch behind Sylvia's ears, receiving an amused and knowing look in response.

"What?"

"'Just friends,' was it?" Carter replies. He scoops Sylvia up one-handed, but Dan intervenes and sets her back on the floor. Carter raises an eyebrow.

"You're naked, it's weird," Dan says with a fidgety shrug. They're both a bit of a mess, drying sweat and sex hair and…other things. Dan averts his gaze from Carter's stomach and stands. "I need to shower. You are, uh, of course welcome to also."

The amusement in Carter's expression only grows as he watches Dan from his comfortable sprawl. "Thanks, handsome."

Dan's own stomach gives a pitiful rumble as he moves towards the bathroom, reminding him that he never had dinner, and he gives his ruined omelette a pathetic, longing look. He'll have to figure something out once Carter leaves, which Dan assumes will be before his shower is over.

So he's a little surprised when Carter pulls back the shower curtain and hops in with him. "Won't be but a minute," he says with a quick grin, and it's the best kind of lie; Carter uses every excuse to get his hands on Dan, then makes out with him until the hot water is used up, then exits – leaving Dan to a cold shower he doesn't even have it in him to complain about.

Dan expects Carter to be gone by the time he's dressed but he's sitting on the couch in his jeans, on his phone, hair wet. Sylvia, traitor that she is, is a faintly purring fluffy white loaf on Carter's chest. Harper is playing on the television.

Dan is not quite sure what's going on here, but it sounds like Carter is ordering Indian food and Dan really does love Indian food. Once Carter hangs up, Dan asks doubtfully, "You watch movies?"

"Mm," Carter answers. "I also eat, breathe, walk, and talk. Just like a real boy."

Dan snorts as he drops onto the couch. "You're not as bad as I thought," he says. "You're actually sort of alright."

"High praise indeed." Companionably, Carter toys with the curls at the nape of Dan's neck. "Low expectations are easy to exceed. If you really cared about me, I'd be pretty disappointing, I promise."

"Oh, Bruce," Dan says, "It must be so hard being Batman."

Carter thwacks him upside the head.







And then this happens:

Blair throws brunches semi-regularly, as though they don't all see enough of each other as it is, and they put up with it because whatever her other faults might be, she can really throw together a menu. And when squinting through a hangover on Sundays, as most of them usually are, good food is a definite necessity.

Carter arrives arm-in-arm with Serena, and it strikes Dan (not for the first time) that they are at-ease with each other in a way neither of them are with anyone else, a kind of camaraderie over a decade in the making. Today, for whatever reason, Dan is faintly, irrationally annoyed by it – until Carter takes the seat next to him at the table and proves himself more interested in tracing Dan's inseam than following the conversation.

Carter cleans up real nice when he wants to; today is no exception. That's probably one of the few reasons Blair is only slightly huffy about his attendance: he's showed up looking every inch the good son of a prominent family, no hint of the trustafarian in sight. He shaved, put product in his hair, dressed in a pale gray button down and slacks – a change from his usual scruff and thrift-store pullovers. He looks good either way, but today there is a clean handsomeness to him that puts Dan's teeth on edge.

"– which is why Dorota isn't here, which is so unfair of her, really –"

"Yeah, B, how dare she want to spend time with her family," Serena teases.

Blair rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "Well, if the service is awful today, that's why."

"You know normal twenty-somethings don't have maid service at their brunches," Dan points out. "And the distance from here to your kitchen is like. Five feet."

"Life lessons from boy who grew up in a million-dollar loft."

"Without maid service," Nate chimes in helpfully.

"Since you're such a normal twenty-something, Humphrey –" Blair starts, and he doesn't even need her to finish that sentence.

"I feel like I need to remind everyone that I was a cater-waiter for like two weeks," Dan says. "I don't understand why I can't shake this."

"You're just awfully good at carrying plates," Blair says, giving him a mocking and overly sweet flutter of the lashes that does sort of work on him.

"And you make the best coffee!" Serena adds brightly.

So he goes into the kitchen to make the coffee and get the next round of goodies. He doesn't mind it, honestly; for all that the girls tease him, especially Blair, they're pretty good at taking their turns on the chore wheel. Well, Serena is. Blair's getting better.

After a few minutes the door to the kitchen pushes in, though Dan doesn't turn to see who it is, busy transferring tiny desserts to a tray. As soon as hands settle on his hips, he knows.

"No," Dan says. "Not at Blair's."

"You don't even know what I was gonna say," Carter protests. He pauses. "What about in the bathroom? Bathrooms are neutral territory."

"Nope, not fucking you in Blair Waldorf's bathroom."

"Just a handie?"

"You are the worst."

He bites the back of Dan's neck lightly and growls a little. "Come on… I need something more exciting than a mimosa to get me through anecdotes of Sean saving starving Dickensian orphans or whatever he does."

Dan continues to plate the pastries. "I see what you're doing there, but no: you will not be able to manipulate my hatred of Sean into sex for you."

Carter harrumphs a little before slipping directly into the space between Dan and the counter, carelessly interrupting Dan, who still has a tiny tartlet waiting in his hand. Carter leans forward to take a bite of it, leaving a little smudge of whipped cream on his top lip.

"You can give up the act," Carter says. "I can tell you're totally charmed."

"You are mind-bogglingly arrogant," Dan tells him. But he kisses Carter anyway.

There's the quickness of Carter's grin against his mouth before the kiss deepens, Dan dropping the tart so he can curl his fingers in Carter's oh-so-neat hair. Carter's hands slide up over his sides and down into the back pockets of his jeans. Dan is internally debating the neutrality of bathrooms – the desire to mess up Carter's good boy act is strong ¬– when he hears a soft, muffled sound behind them.

A soft, muffled, amused sound.

Dan thinks it'll be one of them, come to help – Serena maybe, or Sean, glad to see Dan probably won't steal his girlfriend after all. But it isn't one of them. It's all of them.

Both Serena and Nate are stifling laughter; Autumn is just a pair of eyes peeking over Nate's shoulder like she doesn't know what she's supposed to do; Sean looks, if anything, relieved; and Blair has the scrunched up expression of a person who just stepped in dog poo.

"In my kitchen?" Blair says.

"It's not like you use it for anything," Dan retorts automatically, which is probably not what one should say upon being caught fooling around in a friend's home. "Also, sorry."

Carter's hands are still on his ass, apparently without any intention at all of moving. Wait, Dan was wrong – one hand slides up the back of his t-shirt.

"Has this been going on long?" Blair demands.

"Hon," Sean says, touching her waist lightly. "Maybe you should let Dan tell you in his own time, when he's comfortable."

Dan rolls his eyes so hard he thinks he might've strained something. Carter pinches him.

"Ooh," Serena realizes, "Did this happen that time you were at my place, because I thought it was really weird that Carter did laundry –"

"Oh my god, ew." Blair looks like she just sucked on a lemon. "You people are hedonists."

Dan stares at her. "Who calls someone a hedonist in 2015?"

"If the shoe fits," Carter says. "I have basically fucked everyone in this room." He gives Autumn a wink. "'Cept you, sweetheart."

"Hey, hey, hey." Nate frowns. "Stop that. And we didn't have sex, exactly."

"Neither did we," Sean says. "Just pointing that out for the sake of accuracy."

"Oh my god, Sean, no one cares," Dan snaps.

And that's how everyone finds out.







Dan has to have a lot of conversations after that.

"It's casual," he explains to Blair – or tries to.

"The last time you were 'casual' with someone, you almost ended up engaged to Nelly Yuki, most desperate woman in all Manhattan," Blair says. Before he can respond, she holds up a hand. "And I swear to God if you try to deny it, I will be scratching the drapes."

Grinning, Dan says, "Aw, now don't be mean about Nelly. She's a good girl. You know, she gave shockingly good –"

"No," Blair practically hisses. "Please do not regale me with stories of the sexual prowess of my nemesis, Humphrey."

Serena is thankfully less interested in scolding him over the whole thing, possibly because she finds it so hilarious. "I just don't get how this happened. I mean, you and Carter. You are not a person who experiments. You're like one of those breeds of penguins who mate for life."

"To be fair," Dan says, "I made the decision very early in the morning."

Nate only wants to clarify that he did not, in fact, have sex with Carter. "It was like one blowjob," he says. "Totally doesn't count."

Dan fact-checks that with Carter, whose first response is a shrug as he flicks his cigarette towards the ashtray balanced on Dan's mattress; he has already gotten several burns in Dan's sheets. "Yeah. Sucked his dick once when we were teenagers." He pauses. "Well, he was a teenager, at any rate."

Dan snorts, shaking his head. "You are one shady motherfucker."

Carter gives him a shit-eating grin. "You like it."

Worst part is, Dan does.

Carter shifts on the bed, slithering up next to Dan, who up until now has been lying on his stomach and attempting to get some writing done. "You know," Carter murmurs, low in Dan's ear, "I fucked Blair Waldorf too."

Dan's fingers stutter on the laptop keys, ending the sentence he'd been writing with a jumble of nonsense letters. "You did not," he says, even as he thinks back to the kitchen. Blair hadn't denied being among Carter's everyone. "When?"

"Oh, she had a bad girl phase for about two minutes… Being a bad man, I took advantage."

Dan's heart is suddenly thumping hard against his ribcage, something akin to betrayal swirling through him. But that's ridiculous. He has no reason to feel anything like that. Carter leans in to kiss Dan's neck below his ear, lips soft and hot.

"Want a play-by-play?"

"No," Dan huffs. "It's none of my business."

"But you're curious."

He can feel Carter watching him, so he makes a point of resuming his typing, even if his brain is now essentially blank. "That doesn't make it my business."

Fluid as anything, Carter pushes up and levers himself over Dan, settling on top of him. His mouth presses to the back of Dan's neck briefly. "Quick question: do you miss fucking girls?"

Dan shuts his laptop.

He doesn't even know how one goes about picking up a girl to have sex with oneself and one's shady hook-up, and he rejects asking Serena on grounds of feeling weird about it ("But she's great at threesomes," Carter tries.). Luckily for him his shady hook-up is Carter, and Carter knows all about finding random girls to have sex with.

They go out for drinks, Dan a little anxious but trying to hide it. He excuses himself to the bathroom for a mere five minutes and by the time he returns, there is already a girl sitting at the table next to Carter and laughing at his jokes. It's that fast, blink and you'll miss it, and Dan would be suspicious of Carter's sweet-talking skills if he hadn't experienced them firsthand.

Carter grins wide when he spots Dan. "Danny," he says, knowing Dan hates that, "Meet our new friend Marisol."

"Dan," Dan corrects, finding a smile as he reaches for her hand. "He knows I hate that."

Marisol is petite and strikingly pretty with dark hair swept back off her shoulders. She has a square-shaped face, strong jaw balancing out startlingly symmetrical features. When she smiles, shallow dimples crease her cheeks.

"How long have you two been together?" she asks.

Dan opens his mouth to say something snide but Carter gets there first. "Officially? Two months," he says, sliding an arm around Dan's shoulders.

"Unofficially –" Dan starts.

"Matter of perspective," Carter says with a wink.

"You have absolutely got to cut it out with that winking shit," Dan says, and Marisol laughs.

She must be into the whole boyfriends thing, because Carter plays it up through a few more rounds of drinks. He's always been a man free with endearments but he levels up in front of Marisol – it's all honey this and baby that, and even one or two skin-tingling sweethearts. It's not just that, either; the way he touches Dan becomes stupidly gentle, and Dan finds himself embarrassingly into it too. It's a warm hand curled around the back of his neck, a laughing kiss pressed to his cheek. He thinks of the time Carter promised he could be so tender it'd be shattering.

Eventually the evening winds down and Carter leans across the table, all low-voiced persuasion. "So what do you say, beautiful? Interested or not?"

Marisol's lips purse thoughtfully, gaze shifting between them, and then she shrugs, posture relaxing in the span of a breath. Her eyes almost seem to glitter. "Oh, what the hell. Might as well cross it off my bucket list."

Carter laughs. "Attagirl."

In the cab, Carter kisses her, his fingertips on the strong line of her jaw. He looks at Dan over the curve of her cheek, just blue eyes and a wry grin that softens against Marisol's mouth. Carter's hand pauses on her thigh, stroking back and forth, until she glances quickly at the back of the driver's head and bites her lip, gives Carter a murmured, "Go ahead."

So his hand skims higher, disappearing under the scalloped edge of her black skirt. She sucks in a very, very soft breath, shifting in her seat as Carter slowly drags her panties down until they tangle at her ankles and she kicks them away. Someone should probably retrieve them from the cab floor but Dan imagines they're all just too distracted.

"Give her a kiss, sweetheart," Carter says.

"You're so bossy," Dan tells him, but he's already leaning in to do it. This is Dan's worst behavior in the back of a cab yet, but she tastes so sweet, like cherries and amaretto, that a little bad behavior feels almost warranted. Carter's fingers twist with his, tugging him away from Marisol to steal a kiss of his own; playing the possessive boyfriend, maybe. The cabdriver sighs, an exhausted huff.

The car pulls over a few moments later, Carter and Marisol piling out first and leaving Dan to awkwardly pay the fare with a cringing "sorry?" They hightail it up all five flights, arriving breathless on the landing, Marisol resting against the wall with exaggerated exhaustion.

"You guys need to invest in a building with an elevator," she says. She reaches out to grab a handful of Dan's shirt and haul him over, tilting her face up to kiss him.

"That's what I'm always telling him," Carter says airily as he fishes Dan's keys out of his pocket, because Carter is always losing his own.

Dan fixes his mouth on Marisol's throat, teeth gentle. "He's full of shit, you know."

She seems amused by that. "Who isn't?"

With a click and a sweep, the door opens, Carter reaching over to pull Marisol away from Dan and into the apartment. "You wanna know the truth? Dan and I actually share an ex-girlfriend. It's how we met."

Dan follows them in, watching as Carter peels the jacket from her shoulders and opens the buttons of her blouse one by one. "That's interesting," Marisol says, but she sounds both disinterested and doubtful. She plucks Carter's belt open, slides his zipper down, and slips her hand in.

Carter releases a soft, bitten-off moan. "God's honest. And you know what she told me?" He turns Marisol around and pulls her against his chest so they're both looking over in Dan's direction. "She told me Dan gave the best head she ever had in her life. How about that?"

Now Marisol seems a good deal more interested.

"'Course he's fucking terrible at it with guys," Carter continues. "Can't suck a dick worth a damn."

"I don't put in that much effort with you," Dan says.

Carter smiles but hides it against Marisol's shoulder. "So, sweetheart," he says to her, and the back of Dan's neck prickles. "How do you want it?"

"I'll give him a shot." She tries to sound cavalier but it just comes off breathless, and her gaze keeps pulling to Dan's mouth. He gives her half a smile, drifting closer until he can get on his knees in front of her.

"I'll do my best," he says.

Carter tugs her skirt up obligingly. Her panties are still forgotten somewhere in a New York City taxi, and Dan leans forward to part her with his tongue, deliberate and careful. He looks up and almost laughs to see both of them so intensely watching him, mirrored expressions of lip-biting anticipation. Carter has a hand tucked into the cup of her bra.

The pressure is on for Dan, what with Carter talking him up to the point of ridiculousness, but for once he doesn't feel out of his element. He may not be the best ever in this particular woman's life but this is something he can do, and has done, well. He gives himself up to it, first just mapping her sensitive skin, a little cool from exposure but getting hotter. His lips move over her with purposeful softness, dropping kisses along her cunt like he would anywhere else, like he would kiss her mouth.

He chances a look up again and sees Marisol's eyes tightly closed, her head tipped back, Carter whispering in her ear. Whatever he's saying is probably doing half as much work as Dan is, but Dan isn't really interested in sharing the workload. He nips her thigh sharply to get her attention and then redoubles his efforts.

He focuses everything he's got on her previously ignored clit, sucking and licking and nibbling until he can feel her legs tense and tremble on either side of him. A hand is tight in his hair but it feels like Carter's hand, feels recognizable, and Dan is emboldened, strangely, by that. The angle's iffy but he sinks his tongue inside her as much as he reasonably can then sucks a messy kiss on the surrounding skin, slick and sharp – the taste of her is specifically hers but holds something in common with other women, makes Dan realize just how much he likes this, missed this, wanted this. He's hard but it's a distant feeling, just the ticking of his heartbeat in his body and the pulse of hers against his tongue.

"I'm gonna –" Marisol gasps, but she's wriggling away instead of closer. "Not yet, not yet, I wanna save it."

"I think you're allowed more than one," Dan jokes, but dutifully sits back, raising a hand to wipe his mouth. Then he notices the way Carter's watching him and puts his hand back down.

Carter gives Marisol a nudge but he's still looking at Dan when he tells her, "Bedroom's through there, honey."

Dan rises as Carter reaches for him. "You'll just call anyone that, won't you."

"You want me to save it just for you?" Carter holds Dan's face between his hands, sucks lightly on Dan's bottom lip, tastes Marisol on him. "Want to be the only one called sweet things?"

Dan doesn't know if they're still putting on the show for company, because Marisol is in the other room and, anyway, it doesn't feel very much like playing. Dan makes a low, noncommittal sound before kissing Carter, being kissed.

"I can do that, sweetheart," Carter says, and Dan just wants him to shut up now, so the next kiss is harder, and so's the next after. They kiss until Carter bites Dan's mouth roughly, almost savagely, and it's that, or a combination of everything, that has Dan pressing so close they stumble as they stand there. It's single-minded and furious and Dan wants nothing more than to take Carter to bed, forgetting momentarily that there's another person waiting for them there.

Until she speaks. Marisol's voice floats in from the other room, doing her level best at beguiling: "Boys?"

They have a good time with Marisol, who proves to be uninhibited and good-natured, so exactly what they were looking for that Dan is half-ready to write the entire night off as a fever dream. She leaves sometime in the early hours while they're sleeping, her name and number printed in liquid liner on Carter's bicep.

"God, what a girl," Carter says, admiring it. "Look at that, no smudges."

But Dan is still thinking of the night before, and, well – he's been fucking Carter exclusively for two entire months (officially) and he doesn't know if Carter's been with other people but he can't imagine how Carter could find the time since they're always together. Carter's always looking for a place to crash so he ends up sleeping at Dan's a lot, ordering in and staking claim to the spare toothbrush. Sometimes they even go out for dinner. And, once, to a movie.

Horrified, Dan wonders aloud, "Am I your boyfriend?"

Carter looks up from the phone number on his arm, repulsed. "Dan, I'm comfortable, I don't wanna have to get up to puke."

Dan's tense shoulders relax fractionally. "But we are…friends, sort of?"

Carter considers this. "Sort of," he says finally. "Dick friends."



PART THREE

the best you ever had
dan/carter. dan/carter/ofc. background dan/others.




It's all a roundabout way of getting to this:

"Remember that time," Dan murmurs, face smushed against the nape of Carter's neck very early in the morning, "you said what I wanted was not to play rough?"

One thing Dan does like about Carter is he doesn't ever give Dan shit about what he likes in bed (who he likes is another story). If anything, he wants Dan to be more forthcoming; but on the whole, if Dan has something specific in mind, Carter endeavors to give it to him.

Dan gets fidgety and doubtful anyway, as is his nature. "This is weird, right? Like, normal people don't pretend to be nice during sex, they're just nice. Making an exception for the weird stuff is what's normal when you're normal."

Carter rolls his eyes. "You're talking yourself into a circle."

"Wow, never been accused of that before."

"I promise you, you are the most normal person I've ever taken to bed. Alright? You're so normal you're boring."

Dan's skin tingles all the way down to his fingertips whenever he thinks of his cheek being lightly touched, being called sweetheart. He doesn't know why. It's just something he wants. But he's afraid of it being cheesy – will Carter light candles, pour wine? Does he think Dan's after some kind of eighties Harlequin soft focus softcore extravaganza?

It doesn't end up being a carefully planned thing; it just sort of hovers at the edge of consciousness until they're on the couch kissing because Carter thought Dan's movie choice was boring. And Carter pulls back a little, lips swollen and eyes dark, to murmur, "Now?"

At Dan's nod, they move into the other room. Neither of them bother flicking the light switch, leaving them in hazy mostly-darkness – a streetlamp outside filters conveniently over the dark blue of Dan's bedspread, where Carter deposits him before tugging his shirt off. Dan wets his lips, his hands pressed palm-down to the mattress, ready and waiting.

Carter strips off the rest of his clothes before crawling up the bed to kiss Dan, tongue flicking past Dan's lips. "Lay back," Carter says, so Dan does, eyes falling closed as his head hits the pillow only to open moments later, staring up at the dark. Carter exists at the periphery of his vision, spreading open Dan's unbuttoned shirt and kissing his chest, a slow and direct line down his torso.

He gets Dan out of his clothes with little participation on Dan's part. Instead Dan lets himself enjoy the sweep of Carter's hands over his skin, smoothing over his arms and hips, stroking his stomach. Everything feels hushed and singular. It all seems strangely innocuous, every little touch, so when Carter's lips close around Dan's cock, it's startling enough to wrest a gasp from him. He's still on top of the blankets and the air is cool, Carter's mouth the only distinct source of heat.

He doesn't go down on Dan for long, just gets him going before moving up for a kiss, nudging his nose against Dan's before their lips meet. And Dan has a weird thought, which is: he trusts Carter.

The thing with Marisol brought a few things home that Dan chose not to dwell on. Like the realization that even though he had missed being with women, he probably wouldn't have sought out the experience without Carter's prompting; he hadn't felt like there was something he was lacking.

"Here, honey, shift over," Carter says. His voice, though soft, feels sudden and loud in the silence. Dan answers wordlessly, moving so Carter can pull the blankets up over them, making the space they share smaller, warmer, more intimate. Their legs tangle. Carter's arm is solid around Dan's waist, the other pillowed under Dan's head. His lips press breeze-light over Dan's cheek and his temple and his jaw before finding his mouth again.

Dan realizes he hasn't spoken since maybe forty minutes ago, when they were still watching the movie and he was criticizing Carter's lack of taste. Carter had kissed him so he would stop talking, and it proved an effective technique. Carter is speaking now, low-voiced encouragements and stupid sex compliments, and then he mumbles, "What'd I do to get so lucky, huh, baby? Ending up here with you."

And for whatever reason, Dan just can't.

He turns his face away from Carter's mouth and then just sits up, reaching for the pull chain on the bedside lamp, which floods at least this corner of the room with light. But when even that is not enough, Dan slides out of bed, needing space with desperate suddenness. "Sorry, I'm sorry," he's saying, "I don't know what – I just need a minute or something –"

"Fine with me." There's nothing in Carter's tone to suggest he finds this odd, though he's watching Dan rather closely. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just…" But Dan doesn't really know what's going on with him. He grabs a pair of sweats left draped over the back of his desk chair and pulls them on, then does the same with a discarded shirt he thinks is Carter's. "I'm sorry."

"No reason to be," Carter says easily. There's a beat and then he swings his legs over the side of the bed, reaching for his jeans. "Look, I think I'm gonna run down to the corner for some cigs, is that alright?"

Dan nods, releasing a relieved breath. A few minutes alone are just what he needs, even if he just uses them to berate himself.

"Alright," Carter murmurs, a little to himself, and gives Dan a final look before leaving the room.

He's gone for probably fifteen minutes all told, during which Dan feels increasingly dumb while he sits awkwardly on the bed, then the couch, waiting for the sound of the door. Sylvia threads herself through his ankles insistently but it makes him feel edgy instead of comforted. When Carter does return, cursing about the fuckin' heat, it's with a six-pack and a bag of what smells like cheap, delicious burritos.

"You don't drink." It comes out automatically, and is not at all what Dan intended to say.

"Living vicariously through you." Carter levels him with a considering look, eyebrow slightly arched, but he apparently determines Dan isn't going to implode or anything, so he continues shuffling out of his jacket. "Hungry?"

"Stupid," Dan blurts, then elaborates, "I feel extremely stupid right now."

"Don't." Carter sets the bag and beers on the coffee table before taking a seat and turning on the TV. "My turn, and we're not watching more esoteric hipster garbage."

Dan stares at him. "Are we not going to talk about me royally freaking out for no reason?"

Carter returns the look. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know." Dan shifts uneasily in his seat. "I don’t know what's up with me."

Carter only shrugs. "You don't have to like every single thing we do together," he says. "You're not into it, we do something else. It's not a big deal. Now eat your fucking burrito before I give it to the cat."

"She wouldn't eat it, she has a very refined palate." It's a weak joke, but it makes Dan feel more like himself.

That's how they end up spending the rest of the night, bickering over what to watch until Carter hides the remote under the couch cushions so Dan can't argue with him anymore. And Dan feels pretty normal, his shoulder pressed to Carter's, Carter's hand on his knee. He feels good.







"If you fall for Carter Baizen," Blair says, "I will actually lose it. I'm serious, Dan. I will lose it."

Dan rolls his eyes. "I'm not falling for anybody."

They're both a little boozy – not drunk by any stretch, but enough that everything is shiny and sweet. The breeze is nice on their summer-hot skin. Blair smiles at him in that private way she sometimes does, her hand resting on his cheek.

"Where's Patrick Bateman tonight?" he asks, and she laughs, giving his cheek a light smack before her fingertips go back to trailing over his stubble.

"Sean is working late," Blair says.

"He's so boring," Dan says. "Don't you think he's so boring? I mean, he's a stockbroker, Jesus."

"A financial advisor," Blair corrects. "And his conversation is clever and always appropriate, which is more than I can say for you. But he isn't funny. I'll give you that."

Dan can't seem to stop tracing the line of her throat and collarbone, a strong wide V, over and over. There's a little bit of perspiration on her skin. Her shin rests against his, knee to ankle.

"How's he feel about you flirting with your friends?" Dan asks pointedly, raising an eyebrow.

She smiles again. "He probably wouldn't like it," she allows. "But he thinks you're gay, so."

"You sleep with one of your friend's exes…" Dan says with a mock-put-upon sigh.

"I still can't believe you," she says. "You never do anything this interesting. Or this…" Her gaze sweeps up and down before she decides on, "Innovative."

"Yeah, well, how would you know?" Dan says. "You've never had me."

He can feel Blair's throat work beneath his fingertips. "No," she agrees softly, "I never have."

The extent of Dan's history with Blair is: once they made out in the back of a taxi, and then went back to her place. Wrapped around each other in her bed but still dressed, she came, moaning loud and throaty, and then she fell asleep. Seriously. She came and then kissed him until she passed out, her tremors still running through his body. There was nothing to it except to jerk off in the bathroom and then go back to bed, letting her soft arms encircle him as she snuggled close. That was it. They never talked about it. It still makes him crazy to think about – the flutter of her lashes, her flushed cheeks, the way she bit her lip. Nothing gets him going like the memory of Blair's orgasm, her fingers gripping his arms so hard.

They were both fall-down drunk, so it's probably better nothing happened.

She's his friend, and he'd rather have that.

"You like him a lot, though." The repeated pass of her hand over his jaw is almost hypnotic – or maybe that's the alcohol talking. "Carter. I can tell."

"It's not serious," Dan says, and he'll keep saying it until it sounds true.







In bed, much more successfully than last time:

"Can you –" Carter starts, and –

"Uh-huh," Dan says, hand going up around Carter's throat automatically, pressing harder when he feels Carter swallow.







"I liked watching you go down on that girl," Carter says.

Sunday morning finds Dan exhausted from a late shift at the bookstore the night before that followed quick on the heels of an entire day at the office pretending to be useful: answering phones, filing, typing, trying to write in spare snatches of time, mostly meandering around the internet. Carter is here because Carter is always here now. He has a spare key and he rarely bothers crashing with Serena anymore, unless one or the other of them is feeling weird about how their relationship definitely is not a relationship at all.

So Dan has coffee while he reads. Carter says inappropriate shit. It's all very as per usual.

"Yeah," Dan says dryly, "I could tell."

They've seen Marisol again and it went as well as the first time: nice, casual, Carter's idea. Dan ate her out while Carter fucked him, kissed his neck, called him pet names. Somehow having another person there mitigated whatever wigged Dan out, making it less real and more performance: Dan, playing the part of Carter's boyfriend to a captive audience.

Carter is sprawled on the other end of the couch, lazily trailing a feathery cat toy along the ground while Sylvia loses her entire mind, flip-flopping around so fast she resembles nothing so much as a white tumbleweed. "I liked seeing you like that."

"You like telling me what you like."

Carter grins, wolfish. He only ever calls Marisol that girl when he's trying to initiate dirty talk. It's a way of fitting her into her role: that girl they fool around with sometimes. "You're moody today."

Dan turns a page. "You like that too?"

Carter flicks the toy away (Sylvia skitters after it with a patter of paws) and sits up, sliding a hand up Dan's chest. "I liked tasting her on your mouth, your lips all slick." He thumbs over Dan's mouth, musing, "Kind of tart." And then he pulls away entirely, dropping back against the arm of the couch. "But you don't wanna hear this."

Dan looks down at him, thinking tease. "I don't?"

"I know you think I got too much to say. Can't help it. Benefits of being a big slut my whole life, I know what I want."

"I know, I know, as you like to remind me ad nauseam."

Things don't really get deep enough (ha ha, deep enough) between them for them to fight over anything, but if they were going to have an argument, it'd be about this. Dan doesn't consider himself uptight about sex (theoretically), especially considering the long way he's come from the over-Googling virgin of his teenage years. He just doesn't have as much to say about it as Carter does.

Dan sighs. "Alright," he says. "Cut me a break. This shit's new for me." He shuts his book and sets it aside. "Anything you want to know, ask away."

Carter tilts his head, observing Dan thoughtfully. "Serena was your first everything, wasn't she?"

"Pretty much." He lets himself be a little mean then, for no good reason. Just to be mean. "How many people have you been with? Or don't you know?"

Predictably, Carter is unbothered. "I counted it up once," he says. "Tried to, anyway."

"And?"

"Realized I don't care much for numbers."

"Realized you couldn't count that high?" Dan jokes, and is rewarded with a shove. He lets himself get closer then, kisses Carter on the mouth, pulls back but stays close. Pointedly, he says, "I want to hear it. I like hearing it."

Carter smirks a little before they kiss again, mumbling against Dan's mouth, "You think I don't fuckin' know that?"







Out at the bar on Friday, Dan a little drunk, Carter a lot sober. Nate has broken up with Autumn and is therefore being overly solicitous with Blair, which is very obviously getting under Sean's skin. Serena is entertaining two different boys that she somehow picked up on the trip over to the bar but she clearly isn’t all that interested in either of them, just honing her skills.

Dan looks around at all of them, feeling tipsy and relaxed. "I don't know what I'm doing with you," he laughs, and he's letting himself rest against Carter's side, pressed tight with a hand gripping a fistful of Carter's shirt.

"Most people don't, handsome," Carter says. He's doing that fond voice people use with drunks sometimes.

"Handsome Dan, that's the Yale mascot," Dan informs him. "I think that whenever you call me handsome."

Carter rakes Dan's hair back and then untangles it a little, causing one curl to drop back against Dan's forehead. "You're a sight cuter than a bulldog, I promise."

"I love when you talk like a cowboy, you fucking trusafarian," Dan says, laughing again, and lets Carter kiss him right there in front of everyone.

By the time they leave Dan has pretty much sobered up, but he still feels easy and loose, untethered. It gets him thinking and looking at Carter sideways; as soon as they get in, Dan is shoving him off towards the bathroom.

"Shower," he says, "Thorough," and Carter gives him a raised-eyebrow look of intrigue.

"Handsome has a plan, huh?"

When Carter gets out, Dan wastes no time yanking the towel from his hips, getting him on his stomach on the bed, and then kneeling on the floor next to it. "I think this is more within my skill set," Dan says, and spreads Carter open, puts his mouth there, tongue against Carter.

"Are you using a dental dam?" Carter says, though he doesn't altogether seem to mind: unlike Dan's handful of failure blowjobs, this has an immediate audible response. Short, needy, short staccato groans interspersed with a lot of Dan's name and some very choice swearing.

Dan pulls back with a little bit of a groan himself. "Those sounds you make drive me fucking crazy."

Carter is resting his face on his folded arms and all Dan can see is his profile: furrowed brow, eyelashes against his flushed cheek, lips parted. "Yeah," he breathes, an unthinking agreement.

Dan grins slowly, studying him. "How you doing over there?"

Carter's eye opens, fixing Dan with a half-hearted glare. "Don't go getting all smug on –" but it peters off into a moan, eyes fluttering shut again as Dan presses the tip of his thumb into Carter, just gently. He massages the spot, biting his lip as he considers the situation, and then lets the little square of latex slip to the floor before lowering his head again. He's rewarded with a breathless, strangled exclamation.

It's really not that bad.

Dan pulls away to trail a kiss over the back of Carter's thigh, sinking his teeth into the tender skin. "Turn over," he murmurs. "Give me your hand."

A little shiver runs through Dan as Carter does what he says, unspeaking, his gaze heavy-lidded and lingering. Dan drops a probably stupid, definitely thoughtless kiss to Carter's knuckles before grabbing the lube off the bedside table and slicking Carter's fingers. Then he sits back.

"Go ahead," he says. "Show me what you got."

Their eyes still locked (though Carter seems to be having trouble keeping his open), Carter reaches between his legs, past his hard cock, and starts teasing himself with his index finger. It doesn't take long before his body takes most of it, and then the next few at Dan's quiet, soft-voiced urging. "C'mon. One more."

A bead of precome leaks from the tip of Carter's dick, smearing across his skin. Dan wants to lick it; he always wants that more theoretically than he ever seems to in action. Carter's eyes finally shut as his breathing goes deep and quick. His tongue flicks out to wet his bottom lip.

"Keep going," Dan tells him. "I'll be right back."

Dan goes into the bathroom to rinse his mouth out a few times (thorough showers or not, he isn't going to kiss someone on the mouth after sticking his tongue up their ass) and looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes are a little bright and color's high in his face, but just enough to make him look healthy, eager. He looks calm. He feels calm.

When he returns Carter is all worked up, making repeated trapped noises in his throat as he presses down against his fingers. There's something a little frustrated about it, like he can't quite get the angle right. His other hand strokes his cock, though he keeps having to grip tight at the base, getting himself under control.

Dan tugs off his clothes as he watches, then gets on the bed next to Carter so he can kiss his slack mouth, hand slipping downwards.

"You fucker, you took forever," Carter mumbles.

Dan smiles. His fingertips find Carter's slick knuckles, trace over where they disappear into his body. Then, very carefully, he starts to work one finger in alongside Carter's. "Should I say something cheesy about it being worth the wait?"

Carter makes a helpless gasping sound. "If you don't fuck me in the next minute I'm going to lose my mind."

"Yeah?" Dan makes him slow his pace to an almost leisurely slide. "Then maybe you should ask nice."

"You want an engraved invitation?"

Dan nips at Carter's earlobe, kisses wetly at his throat. "I want to hear how desperate you are."

Carter breathes a soft swearword but barely a minute passes before words are spilling from him, shameless in this as in everything. "Please fuck me – c'mon, fuck me, I'm dying here, honey –"

And Dan kisses him to shut him up, getting to it as quick at he can.

He wonders how many people Carter has been with, how many people have done this to him – a number that couldn't be counted, apparently. It's not jealousy, exactly, though Dan wouldn't deny feeling that to some extent; it's just that old feeling he used to have, of being the most unremarkable one in a crowd. But he makes himself shake it off because it doesn't matter, because Carter is gripping tight to him and still begging even though Dan is inside him now, giving him what he wants.

"I know," Dan soothes in between hard kisses. "I know."

He knows what Carter likes by now so Dan fucks him harder, faster, all the porn heat-of-the-moment words, but Carter shakes his head a little, says, "Slow – slow –"

Dan looks at him, his eyes shut tight as he fidgets, pushing back against Dan. And he slows himself down, all languorous thrusts and dragging, sweat-slicked skin. "Is that good?" Dan murmurs, low. "Is that what you want?"

"Oh, Dan," Carter breathes, kissing Dan again and again. "Oh, fuck, honey –"







This is the end:

Carter has gradually taken up residence in Dan apartment: the long-ago stolen toothbrush, the overpriced hair product designed to make him look effortlessly tousled, his razor next to Dan's, his clothes strewn by the laundry basket because he refuses to take a drawer but is also too messy to keep things in his bag. It's been four months since the last time he left town, maybe five, and that's a long time for Carter. That is a very long time.

So it's both a surprise and not when he says he's leaving.

He does his whole rebel without a clue act, shrugging his shoulders and lighting a cigarette. "Dunno," he says when Dan asks where and for how long.

"Ah," Dan murmurs, quelling his disappointment. "Well. I guess…it's been nice having sex with you."

Carter rolls his eyes but smiles. "Back at you." He pauses, taking a posed-looking drag. "I am coming back, you know. I'm not going off to war."

Dan gives him a curious look, starting to smile a little. "You're not, huh?"

Carter fidgets. "No."

Seems nothing to it then but to kiss Carter on the mouth, a cool and detached goodbye kiss that warms up when Carter pulls him closer. "So," Dan says, "Got time for a last hurrah?"

"Oh yeah," Carter replies, against his mouth, "I always make time for a couple of those."







Three weeks later, Carter's back.

Potentially Relevant Links:
+ the last recap
+ links to watch
+ other links + subs




Hello friends! It has tragically been much too long since I have done one of these, my apologies. This is the first episode I will be recapping using that CB fan's subtitles, and I've heard there is occasionally snarky commentary from them, which I am greatly looking forward to.

We left Jenny trapped in the Fuenmayor boutique and arrive to Lily sweet-talking the police to get her out of trouble. Everyone looks disappointed by this entire to-do except Sofia, who makes lowkey hilarious faces the entire time like she's vaguely delighted by Jenny's burgeoning trouble-making. Which, Serena would be. Rufus and Lily are super mad and pretend to be disciplinarians but Sofia is like: you know you're terrible parents, right?

Even Gossip Girl says they suck via voiceover.

The next morning, Rufus (his name is actually Marcelo here, I think) wakes Jenny at dawn! Because she's punished and must WORK! Jenny is unimpressed in that specifically teenage girl way. She sits her father down and attempts to explain peer pressure, poverty, and being fresh meat in a rich girl school but Rufus is willfully obtuse about it. Of course he is.

Daniel is not disappointed in Jenny, just worried. It's pretty darling/hot. He's worried little Jenny is being bullied but Jenny is more concerned that people are talking shit about her on the internet. Daniel tells her to find friends who respect her. Bless.

Instead of doing that, Jenny dresses herself up in what is, I think, supposed to be a killer look but instead is a kind of weirdly styled mess in a super questionable color scheme. It's up there at the top of the page. Nice sunglasses? I had shoes like that once expect mine were cuter. Jenny says a big fuck you to being grounded and bounces.




Nico is practically 100% naked on Max's couch, not even one foot from where practically 100% naked Max is in a pile with two practically 100% naked girls. This is even more ridiculous than Chuck and Nate and I love it. Max actually has a nice body so he's not wearing absurd striped silk pajamas, and these girls are not in their full maid's uniforms so maybe he doesn't coerce his employees into sex! I can hope, right?

Half-awake Max lets Acapulco Ann into his den of iniquity so she can rouse her naked probably bisexual son. She seems vaguely scandalized though not enough imo; then again, she does still think he's a crackhead. Nico could care less and barely even worries about buttoning up his top. Dude, your mom can see your dick right now. I know because I can almost see your dick right now.

The morning after the (lesbian) sleepover, Blair is gloating during a breakfast of pink pastries and pink smoothies that no one is actually touching but that I want to eat. Jenny prances in with cupcakes in a show of mean girl dominance and doesn't even take off her shades the entire time she's emotionally belittling these girls. She calls them "darlings" in English and gives them her handcuffs before declining to stay to eat. Then in the pièce de résistance, she whips the stolen dress out of her purse and says she's keeping it. Jenny Parra out, bitches!

Barbie pretends to feel bad about being mean to Jenny and treats herself to a single bite of food.

Back at the Parra Poverty Bed and Breakfast, Dan is half-naked helping his father do manual labor. Nothing of value happens in this scene, I'm just bringing it up because this is an especially naked episode. It hasn't even been ten minutes and I've seen like twenty abs.




The main plot of this episode is Eleanor's photoshoot, with the resultant Blair-Serena modeling switcheroo. But it's done somewhat differently here, with some tweaking and readjusting of scenes, and it's to the episode's detriment. It's nowhere near as emotionally impactful or satisfying. There's also no Dan/Blair bonding. 1x04 and 1x09 are the episodes that made me care about this dumbfuck show in the first place but this episode just packs none of the punch. Remember Leighton's tentative and vulnerable rawring! Remember Blake's tender concern and legitimately more charismatic photo-taking! Remember!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Terrifying Acapulco Eleanor (Leonora) is talking about finding a new face for her line now that it's been picked up in Barney's in New York and Somewhere Fancy in Paris. Aww, New York reference! As Leonora is listing all of the qualities she wants the model to embody, little Barbie arrives looking like an adorable personification of all those things. She tries to eat a cookie but Leonora physically takes it out of her hands; Barbie says she lost two pounds and isn't that great, but her mom is like that's no reason to eat a cookie, Barbie, you should eat fruit if you absolutely must eat at all. Barbie insists she's skinny and fools around with one of Leonora's dresses to prove she's thin enough to fit into a sample size. Leonora has a wonderful, awful idea.




Barbie is so happy I love her and I'm so sad! I'm of two minds about the slight difference in the Eleanor/Blair relationship in this show. Leonora is so flat-out cold and terrible that it does something interesting for Barbie's characterization, makes her preening more desperate and the criticism she receives much harsher. Margaret Colin was a much warmer actress, so it brought an interesting edge to her relationship with Blair, a push-pull of love and judgment that felt very real in an awful way. But I think the affection the writers had for Colin made them soften her too much as time went on, and it lost the very thing that defined it in the first place. If all of that makes sense.




We know how the photoshoot goes: Barbie sucks, Sofia coaches her, Sofia steals the show. But there are some changes. First of all Barbie's dress is TERRIBLE. I don't even think they'd sell that in Forever 21, let alone Barney's. Try again, Leonora.

They sort of combine all the photoshoot scenes into one, so Sofia helps Barbie out a few different times to similarly faily results. She tells Barbie, in English, that she's the "top model," which is cute; they do some rawr-ing but cannot top the original; they do sad puppy faces that are also cute. Nico visits to vent about his family to Sofia but seeing them together distracts Barbie so much that she fucks up even more. He instructs Sofia not to tell Barbie anything and leaves without even saying hi to his girlfriend. Barbie gets to accuse Sofia of being an untrustworthy flirt like fifty more times. It's all sort of unnecessarily repetitive? For some reason an assistant makes Sofia try on the exact same ugly dress as Barbie but in another color so…that she can upstage B further, I guess? It doesn't really look like she's doing a better job, lol, but the fashion people are vibing it, I guess. It was a pitch-perfect scene in the original (you know, for Gossip Girl) but it just kind of rings hollow and convoluted to me here.

Some Bart, Lily, Eric shit has been going on throughout the episode but I don't feel the need to report on it because it's boring.

The fashion people tell Leonora that Barbie sucks but Sofia is great and Leonora feels zero guilt at all about switching, like, sis does not even blink. The show hides the fact that the replacement is Sofia, though, for now.




Barbie meets with Nico for lunch. He cannot work up even the tiniest amount of fake interest in her; in her overeager way, she instructs him to smile and all he can do is give her the most pained expression I have seen on this show so far. Leonora and El Capitán appear out of nowhere to set the stage for selling Nico's ass to the Fuenmayors for business reasons later on. They set up a dinner, but Barbie interrupts to be like IDK IF I WILL HAVE TIME FOR FAMILY DINNERS, I AM A BIG BUSY MODEL NOW AND I MIGHT HAVE A PHOTOSHOOT. Leonora is like, "I doubt it, sweetie." Those are her actual words.

Daniel is finally free from anger management but for some reason he needs his course completion form to be signed off on by Max. I feel like that is not how these things work. Why would one 18 year old sign off on another 18 year old's paperwork? How is the instructor not enough?

Sofia is waiting for him outside and catcalls him adorably while he pretends not to know who she's talking to. They hug like eight times. I love these dumb idiot kids. Sofia tells Dan to punch Max if he doesn't sign the paper, which is not the point but I like how she thinks. Dan's shirt is barely even buttoned at all. What a great show.




Suddenly it's nighttime and the Lopez-Haro-Zagas are having dinner with Daniel included. Lily drops the bomb that she's fucking Max's dad and the kids seem a little taken aback even though…why else would she have invited them to dinner? Max's response to the announcement is basically to be like "great, I needed incest to complete my bingo card." Eric is also down with the incest from the way he's eyeballing Max while talking about how he always wanted an ~older brother. Sofia is less enthused and storms off before giving Lily a piece of her mind. Her hair does not look cute. That's not important, but I felt you guys should know.

Sofia demands Max sign off on Dan's paperwork. Max says no just to be a controlling asshole. Bart (Emiliano, actually) is having fucking none of it and makes him sign the papers, because Bart was always a tough but not straight-up horrible dad who just didn't want his garbage son to be garbage – whatever the show decided of him later. Daniel is polite and lovely and excuses himself from the dinner so nicely that Bart wonders why he couldn't get that for a son instead of the petty assface he ended up with.

Secretly I always got a kick out of Bart blatantly preferring Dan to Chuck. Dan was totally Chuck's Serena. He took everything!!!!!!

Sofia leads Daniel to some cheap-looking vista. They complain about Max (the translation reveals this amazing thing Dan says, which is: "Sometimes I want to grab [Max's] head and dunk it so far into a vat of gel that he stops breathing." Us too, bro. Us too.) and then sweet talk each other until they finally give it up and kiss. It was a long time coming but it nevertheless feels like an odd moment to me? Sometimes that happens with soaps. They build and push moments for so long that by the time shit happens you're like "eh."

P.S. The game Daniel lays on Sofia is apparently this: "I adore you. You awaken all of my senses. You drive me crazy."

I mean, it'd work on me if a guy that hot was saying it.

Morning! Barbie's tits are CRAZY at breakfast with her mom. I mean her boobs are amazing at all times, this girl is nothing but boobs and legs, but maybe it's the flesh-toned pink top, I was startled. Barbs also has an adorable fox sleeping mask perched at a jaunty angle on her head. I love her.

Leonora fans herself dramatically while telling Barbie that she's not a model, her photos were terrible, and they're using someone else. Then she gives Barbie a brand new car to cheer her up. Well, that's one way to raise a kid. After that, Leonora is like, "Totally unrelated, but I need to talk to Sofia RIGHT NOW so bring her to my office later, k?"

Barbie looks at her shiny new car with much less enthusiasm.




Meanwhile Daniel is a new man thanks to that halfhearted smooch! He woke up early and ran six miles! Because of LOVE. He slides into the kitchen singing. (The CBer's caption reads "sings about how this love isn't an illusion, unlike the original D -- sorry I'll stop." I cannot wait to hear the rest of this person's opinions, I am being very honest.) Jenny teases Dan about how no one has ever loved him before now and how Sofia never knew he existed before but he pined for her, etc, etc.

To which I say this: the Parras have JUST moved to Acapulco, so I assumed we were supposed to take Daniel seeing Sofia at the airport in the pilot as the first time he saw her EVER. Which means he has not been pining for years a la our Dan? And also Vanessa is Dan's ex-girlfriend in this and she's majorly on his D, so it seems fair to say someone did love Dan and it's implied that he is not a virgin either. He also had those friends on the beach! This Daniel is not quite our virginal little knight errant loner boy so it's odd that now they're trying to act like he is. He even seemed to have friends at school!

This episode is a bit off, honestly, and it's not quite as fun, despite all the abs and boobs.

Anyway, Jenny gives Dan an adorable hug for finally getting his mack on with Sofia, and says her heart is going to explode. She's so pleased her sibling is getting to be just as good at social-climbing as she is.

Acapulco Anne bugs Nico about his drug addiction, so he finally tells her that he was just covering for his shit father. Nico says his entire life is a lie! Even Barbie! Everything is bullshit! It's so hard to be him!!!! Little Nate always trying so hard not to be like everyone else in his family always got me, I won't lie. You fight against the ties that bind, kiddo!

Sofia shows up at Barbie's first so they can go to Leonora's workplace together, which, again, feels unnecessary. Are they just trying to fill time this episode? What is up with these little pointless scenes and the terrible pacing? They get to Leonora's, where she asks Sofia to be her model right in front of Barbie. Barbie leaves in an angry huff. Sofia goes after her. Leonora is like: "Whatever. Sofia's super hot, right?"




Another vista! Another heart to heart with matchy outfits! Sofia's pants are the ugliest things I have ever seen, even including that Forever 21 dress from before. They have the same fight these girls aways have, which is: Sofia is an untrustworthy tramp, blah blah, you take everything. Meanwhile Sofia is always asserting her innocence, now even going so far as to swear she'd sue Leonora before ever letting her use Sofia's image. They make up YET AGAIN and it's fine, but it just has no weight. Everything got dragged out too much and the constant fighting-and-making-up-next-to-vistas is exhausting. Or maybe I'm just moody today? It's possible.

Gossip Girl drops some voiceover platitudes. The end of the episode is nigh, friends.

Dan rips off his shirt to clean the pool because…reasons? I ain't complaining. But guess who arrives in the nick of time to catch him naked and afraid! If you guessed Vanessa, you get a cookie. This will be a pattern with her – just wait until she jumps Dan in the shower.

They hug while Dan looks slightly terrified. As he should, honestly. I've always had somewhat complicated feelings about Our Vanessa. I think the writing did her majorly dirty and I also think I got sucked into some peer pressure/internalized misogyny regarding my early feelings of grave dislike for her. But at the same time I don't…really…care for Jessica's acting or lack thereof. I don't know, you guys. I'm still trying to figure my shit out about it to this day. I feel deep guilt specifically when I don't like lady characters but…you can't like everyone, right? Then again, I think I probably would love Vanessa if the writing for her had been different. I loved Vanessa in the manga, though I never read the books.

But that is all besides the point. Because this girl? This girl is the worst.

Yes, here I am hassling everyone on this graveyard wasteland again! You've got a couple of days, kids, so if you were thinking about signing up, you totally should, and now's the time.

crash and burn girl
dan/blair. serena. 11k words. s4 au.
w: abortion

summary: Blair is not prepared for the full force of Humphrey's affections.

note: A combination of rewatching s4 (why would I do this to myself) and being sort of gently inspired by Obvious Child/some other stuff. And also wanting to write Blair getting her shit together and DB being a normal couple. Wecouldhavehaditall.mp3.






One kiss turns into two and three and four, until Blair's arms are wrapped all the way around Dan's neck and the distance between them has closed completely. Somewhere in the middle of kiss number five she suddenly comes to her senses (maybe something to do with Dan's hand on her ass) and thrusts him violently away. Dan skids a little, looking as confused as she feels. His mouth is soft and blurry.

They look at each other for a protracted moment before Blair declares, "That was terrible." She turns for the stairs, waiting until she's climbed a few to add, "Are you coming?"

It only seems to compound his confusion, but he does follow her.







Blair had seen Dan at Film Forum sitting three rows ahead, Nénette on screen. He was taking up an obscene amount of space, sitting low with his legs edging over into the seat-space on either side, that obnoxious boy-sprawl that they do. He was eating popcorn. Blair only noticed him because there was a dense tumbleweed of hair blocking the screen directly in front of her and really, who else would it belong to?

Right then, it felt like sitting three rows behind Dan Humphrey in the cinema was the final nail in her holiday's coffin. Serena was on her road trip, Nate was with his grandfather, Eric was in Gstaad with that new boyfriend who had worse hair than Humphrey. Chuck was in New Zealand. Her mother and Cyrus were shopping for a new house in Aix. Even Dorota was on a little family vacation up in Vermont. Blair was stunningly alone, and stunningly lonely.

As the film went on, Blair found herself wishing she'd gone somewhere – though where would she even have gone, and with whom? No one invited her on a road trip or to look at houses. Once she'd had lots of friends on various tiers, a whole host of acquaintances, but it seemed like everyone had drifted away. Chuck demanded most of her attention until he didn't and now she found herself with an excess of time and nothing to fill it.

Some kind of kerfuffle drew her attention back to Dan. A group of teenagers was being noisy, cackling about the things teenagers found to cackle at during documentaries about French orangutans. And Dan muttered to himself loud enough to carry back towards Blair, "Fucking kids today."

Blair stifled a laugh. She pictured him at St. Jude's, probably muttering similar things to himself as snide people walked away unhearing; as she walked away. The thought made her smile but also made her incomprehensibly sad. For the first time she felt very aware of Dan as a person existing separate from her own life – not just the annoying boyfriend of a friend, the upstart boy from Brooklyn.

Without thinking it through, Blair got up and moved forward a few rows, dropping into the seat at the end of his aisle, two away from him. "That mop on your head is blocking my view," she said, not looking at him. She held out a hand. "Popcorn, Humphrey."

She could feel his eyes on her, huffy and disbelieving. Then he handed over the popcorn.







It has been a very long time since Blair has been with anyone besides – with anyone different. She tries to think back: there had been no one all summer in Paris, no one at Columbia (she'd never gone to bed with Boring Cameron), no one else freshman year. She thinks the last non-Chuck person she had sex with was Carter Baizen back in high school. She doesn't know how to feel about that.

At the top of the stairs Dan touches her again, just his hands curling around her waist and pulling her back against his chest. A shiver steals through her, low in her stomach and down to the tips of her fingers. It's surreal. The entire thing is surreal.

"Blair," he starts softly, and she expects any number of questions: are you sure about this, do you want to talk, are we still friends? But he just kisses the side of her neck. So Blair slips the straps of her dress off her shoulders, slides her arms out, and lets the dress fall.

She turns her face towards him a little, nervous and hating it. "Dan?"

He doesn't seem to notice or care about her lingerie, black mesh with jewel-bright blue embroidery, a matched set that cost her two hundred euros, which she's sure he would scoff at. She thought it was cheap, so cheap she almost didn't bother buying it. Dan's hands are smoothing over her stomach and sides now, mouth at the corner of her lips.

Maybe it's because it's been so long, but Blair finds herself oddly shy with Dan, unsure of what to do or how exactly to behave. Sometimes it feels like the things Chuck liked are the only things she knows how to do. What if Dan doesn't like any of that?

They finally make their way into her room, but Blair is struck by a new, horrible thought: what if it's terrible? What if their connection is simply intellectual and they were only meant to be friends, nothing more?

What if, afterwards, only one of them thinks that?

It's not until she finally turns to face Dan that she registers the same worries in his expression, the same trepidation in his eyes. It makes her feel better all at once – it makes her feel like she isn't alone.








In the morning she's disoriented, but only for a moment, long enough to register the weight of Dan's arm around her waist and for the night before to come rushing back.

Like, Dan sitting up against the headboard with her in his lap, the duvet puddled voluminously around them. The brush of his nose against hers as their lips met. Her arms draped around his shoulders and his fingertips digging into her spine. Being so horribly, awfully vulnerable.

Blair looks over at him now, dead asleep and breathing deeply. It's strange for him to be here in her bed. It's one thing to give into one's worst instincts in the middle of the night, but under the scrutiny of daylight –

Dan shifts in his sleep, turning towards her, and Blair thinks suddenly of his hot, open mouth against her collarbone. She commands herself not to regret this. She does not want to regret this. (A tiny voice in her head is saying you slept with Serena's boyfriend but she counters that he isn't Serena's boyfriend anymore, has not been that for years now.)

She slides out of bed without disturbing him, landing cat-like and quiet on her feet. She snatches her robe on the way into the bathroom, where she does her customary morning-after polishing without ending up too polished – not that Humphrey would be able to tell the difference, presumably. She hadn't taken off her makeup before falling asleep and she's embarrassed to see the patchiness of her foundation, the flakes of mascara under her eyes. She hopes she didn't leave any on the pillowcases, how mortifying.

Blair brushes her teeth and her hair, takes the quickest of showers, puts on perfume, and fills in her eyebrows lightly, dabs a lip stain onto her too-pale mouth. She puts on just a touch of brown mascara, for subtlety's sake. Then she goes back into the bedroom, shucks off the robe, and gets under the covers again, pretending to be asleep. It lasts about half a second before Dan goes, "You took forever in there. I thought you were going to sneak out through Serena's room and I'd have to walk of shame back to Brooklyn wondering if I made the whole night up."

Blair opens her eyes, fixing him with a disapproving glare. But he looks so rumpled and appealing that she can't even keep it up. God, she's a disaster. "Good morning to you too, Humphrey."

"Good morning," Dan says, almost playful, and leans in like he's going to kiss her but then doesn't. "I seem to remember you do know my first name. You said it very beautifully last night, in a variety of pitches –"

Her immediate instinct is to pinch him sharply, but she settles for a shove to the shoulder. "Shut up, Dan." He lifts his arm to wrap around her, Blair leaning into him with surprising ease. "I can still sneak out and leave you here."

He doesn't appear to believe her, if the smile is anything to go by.

She leans her cheek on his shoulder as both of them allow the quiet to stretch, presumably wondering who will be the first to bring up the big serious questions, what it all means. But Blair isn't interested in facing reality just yet.

She scratches her fingers idly through the hair on his chest. "I don't remember you looking like this," she says, and is embarrassed a moment later when his eyebrows lift.

"When exactly have you seen me without clothes on? Before last night, that is."

"Over the summer, once, maybe." Then she wiggles her eyebrows at him a bit. "I have snooped through Serena's phone in the past, also."

It might be the height of bad manners to mention Serena at a moment like this, but he's already said her name once and it's not like either of them forgot she existed. Dan only laughs, a light flush rising to his cheeks. "Well, whatever you saw there was likely very old."

"Uh-huh," Blair says with a smile, looking up at him, and then Dan does kiss her. There's that buzz through her hands again and her stomach does a funny flip, a feeling like being on a rollercoaster: excited and scared. Last night she'd wanted him to kiss her so badly but she hadn't let herself admit it until he did.

When they pull apart, the first words out of his mouth are, "We should talk."

Don't spoil it. "I know."

But before any talking can happen, both their phones go off at once, and Dan groans. "Shit. I'm supposed to be having a family brunch."

"Your family is too fond of brunches," Blair says crossly as she picks up her own phone, where a text from Serena reads: BEN LEFT CALL ME.

Blair keeps her expression blank even as she experiences several things in quick succession: relief at the end of Serena's latest ridiculous relationship, guilt at all the things she will certainly not be telling Serena about when they talk, and just a little bit of worry too – because whenever Serena's relationships end, Dan is usually the one to pick up the pieces.

She tosses the phone aside, watching Dan get hurriedly back into his clothes. Skip it and spend the day with me.

"I'll call you," he says, "I promise."

Blair must look a little forlorn sitting there holding the duvet against her chest, because when Dan leans in to kiss her goodbye, he presses both hands to her cheeks and lingers longer than is strictly necessary.

"I promise," he repeats, and the crazy thing is, Blair believes him.







Various obligations conspire to keep them apart for the entirety of the following week. Blair decides she is no longer interested in licking her wounds and starts sending out as many résumés as she is physically capable of sending, though the only response she seems to get in return is no thank you. Dan is tangled up in family problems thanks to Lily's legal trouble and, though they talk a few times, it's all surface. They are perhaps avoiding each other just a little.

It's a delightful surprise when Blair is finally rewarded for her efforts, receiving a call from Epperly offering her a job assisting on a photoshoot. She's even more surprised to find Dan there when she arrives.

"Humphrey," Blair says, lips pressed together and arms crossed. "You have got to stop trying to steal my job."

He holds up his hands defensively, appearing greatly entertained by the situation. "She needed two people." Smugly, he adds, "And after all, I was a big hit at W."

"If you're counting when you hit the floor," Blair says.

"That was terrible," Dan says. "Even for you, I know you love a pun, that was terrible."

Sniping comes naturally to them, so half the day passes before the awkwardness sets in. Blair isn't sure if she runs out of wordplay or Dan acquires sudden stores of patience, or if it's just that they have to start working together to get anything done. Once they have nothing left to hide behind they don't know how to act anymore.

Blair becomes aware of Dan looking at her in a different way than she's used to Dan looking at her, his eyes on her body with something knowing lurking in them. When he catches her catching him, he gets all flushed and tries to laugh it off, wry and self-deprecating in an attractive way, hand coming up to scratch at the back of his neck.

"I keep thinking I know what you look like naked," he confesses, quiet so no one else will hear.

Blair sinks her nails into her palms. "How long did we get for lunch?"

He tilts his head. "Fifteen minutes. Why?"

They have rushed, spontaneous sex in the bathroom. Blair doesn't know how it happens. She drags him in by a fistful of sweater but it's not until she's hiking up her skirt with her back against the tiled wall that she realizes what she's doing. It's all so entirely beyond her control.

Dan, for his part, goes along with it beautifully, hauls her up in his arms and kisses her hard. He's self-assured in a way she doesn't expect from him. The same could be said of their last encounter (fancy that, sleeping with Humphrey enough times to notice patterns); Dan Humphrey's got her number and he's not afraid to let her know it. Blair comes embarrassingly fast. She has admittedly always been quick on the trigger, but it's discomfiting somehow for him to know that. She can't seem to stop giving herself away.

Dan's lips are on her throat and she can feel his smug grin blossoming against her skin, as though he knows just what she's thinking. It's right then Blair realizes she's crazy about him. That's going to be a problem for her.

"Maybe now you can concentrate on your work," Blair breathes, unlocking her fisted hands from his hair.

"If that was your goal," he murmurs, "then I can tell you it's a failure. I don't think I'll be able to concentrate ever again."

She suppresses a smile, relishing the flattery, as silly as it is. "Get off me, Brooklyn," she says without heat.

"Oh, so that's how it is." Dan lets her leg down gently, tugs her clothes to rights quickly and automatically. "Five minutes ago I was rocking your world."

He has rosy lipgloss smeared across his bottom lip that Blair reaches up to wipe away. "You hang out with your lame nineties dad too much if you think 'rocking your world' is a phrase people use anymore."

"What should I use then? 'Mind-blowing,' maybe? 'Life-changing'?"

"Shame-inducing," Blair says dryly. "Let's get back to work, hm? You have some English setters to wrangle."

Before they leave, probably a good five minutes late, he touches her elbow lightly. "Hey, uh, after – after we're done today, you wanna grab dinner? My treat."

Blair holds back a cheap barb. "Okay," she says simply. "Your treat."







Blair is not prepared for the full force of Humphrey's affections. One night she has a craving so he makes a stack of pancakes for her, and the one on top is shaped like a large letter B, riddled with chocolate chips. She thinks it's so stupid, it's so dumb, it's such a dumb thing for a person to do for another person.

She cuts it into a million tiny pieces so she doesn't have to look at it.

Another night she's sitting in bed rubbing lotion onto her arms, waiting for him to be done in the bathroom, when she notices a book on his bedside table. It's sandwiched between a fiction anthology and Train Dreams (which he's been bugging her about), but there it is: D.V., by Diana Vreeland.

Blair pulls it free and holds it in her hands, looking down at it.

"So, I know you like to sneak out at the crack of dawn because you wake up freakishly early," comes Dan's voice, growing closer and closer until he's over the threshold, "But there's this diner down the street where I have literally never been spotted by Gossip Girl, like ever, so I thought maybe we could go get breakfast like a normal – What is it?"

Blair arches an eyebrow and holds the book up.

Dan is a touch sheepish. "Oh. Well, I remembered you mentioned it."

He's also appointed himself reader of her various cover letters, offering critique she did not ask for in a way that is both annoying and needed, which makes it all the more annoying. It's mid-afternoon, a good time for them to steal time together, and Blair leans over his shoulder at his desk, frowning at the screen of his laptop.

"I don't see how you can make so many corrections in such a relatively short piece of writing," Blair huffs.

"They're not corrections," Dan insists. "Just – look, you have all the qualifications, right? It's just…sometimes an issue of tone."

Tone bordering on chilly, Blair says, "What is that supposed to mean?"

Dan rolls his eyes, turning slightly to pull her around and right down into his lap. It's highly patronizing but Blair sort of likes it anyway. "It means," he says patiently, also very patronizing, "that your competence can occasionally come off as arrogance instead."

"Am I not supposed to take pride in my achievements?"

In apparent reaction to the rising pitch of her voice, Dan kisses her shoulder. "No, but you do sometimes get in your own way."

"Attempting to be cute while you're being irritating does not actually negate the fact that you're being irritating."

Dan grins at her. "It does a little, though, doesn't it?"

It's Blair's turn to roll her eyes but then she kisses him on the mouth. "I know you're trying to help," she tells him, "but perhaps next time wait for help to be requested."

"Okay," he murmurs, kissing her back. "You got it."

The conversation gets away from Blair at that point. There's more kissing, and Dan Humphrey's hands under her Marc Jacobs – Blair finds that part of it has become appealing to her, the ostensible wrongness of giving it up to this particular boy here in Brooklyn. Doing something she shouldn't has always tasted a little too sweet to Blair.

She ends up facing away from him, her hands braced on the desk and panties simply tugged aside, Blair grateful she chose stockings instead of tights today. He presses kisses between her shoulder blades through the flimsy fabric of her blouse.

His name escapes her in a moan, fingers curling around the edge of the desk.

Perhaps she's not prepared for the full force of her affection for him.







The rather exceptional desk-sex (if Blair did say so herself) had been rather exceptionally interrupted, thanks to Dan's father and his awful timing. One minute she was relaxing against Dan's chest, shivering with aftershocks, and the next the sound of the door had them jumping up like they were electrocuted. Blair practically dove into the bathroom and then hid in there like a child until Dan was able to get rid of his father. It was an interminable twenty minutes.

They have now been avoiding a Relationship Talk for three straight days.

Blair tries to distract him by expounding on every other detail of her carefully planned future, ignoring the ways he does or does not factor in. "My three year plan," Blair recites with forceful pride injected into her voice. "Every moment is allotted for work, school, and personal obligations."

Dan looks over her color-coded plans with that same expression he had the one time she tried to make breakfast. Like he didn't want to crush her but he was going to have to tell her the egg was raw. "Your organizational skills are, as always, slightly terrifying."

Blair smiles, waiting.

"Did you schedule in time to eat, sleep, and breathe?"

And there it is. "Yes, Humphrey. After my W disaster, which I'm sure you can recall, I accepted that it was necessary to factor in basic human functions. I adjusted. That is why it's a three year plan now, instead of two."

He makes a little harrumphing noise and sets her planner aside. "The other day, when you told me to wait until you asked for help? I respect that, but I gotta say – don't be weird about asking. I'm not going to think any less of you."

Blair's smile is softer then, realer. "I can't actually promise not to be weird about it," she says. "But I will endeavor to try."

"Good." Dan gives her a kiss. "So, uh, what exactly counts as 'personal obligations'?"

As segues go, it is not one of his better attempts as getting her to talk about whatever it is that's going on between them. And as distractions go, Blair's isn't one of her better attempts either. "Hmm," she murmurs, leaning in to kiss him again, more firmly. "Maybe something like this?"

An hour and a half later he's too tired to talk at all. Instead they eat Indian food while cuddled on his couch, Blair buttoned into one of his flannels with a blanket across her bare legs. They're watching Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, and Dan is pretending to be awake even though he keeps dozing against her shoulder. It's all very cozy.

Then Blair feels a sudden rising spiral of nausea, eyes widening at the abruptness of it, and she shoves him off so she can race to the bathroom and spew out her tikka masala. Dan is next to her a moment later, reaching for her hair, sliding a palm over her back.

Blair sits back on the cool tile. She has that shaky feeling you get when you're not throwing up by choice and she wipes her mouth about a thousand times with the handful of tissue Dan provides.

She thinks his eyes are a little bit wary.

"I didn't do it on purpose," Blair snaps, annoyed. As if she'd do it in front of him. Not that she does it anymore.

Dan schools his expression, offering her a smile. "Guess that place is off the order rotation, huh?"

"You should have known not to get food from a restaurant located next to a laundromat."

"We'll know better next time," he says breezily, leaning up to grab a toothbrush for her. "I'm honestly impressed you even ate it."

"Well I'm glad you're impressed, because I'm paying for it now." Blair enjoys the sulkiness in the way that she has always enjoyed sulking, because it gets her things: like Dan taking care of her, making her mint tea and holding her all through the rest of the movie.







The next day Blair feels worse, if possible. She's back at her own place with the intention of getting some work done, finishing a few papers in advance to free her up later on, but she's filled with such an inexplicable lethargy that all she's capable of doing is laying in her bed watching old episodes of Project Runway. She must be getting the flu. That, or her period. Blair flicks her phone open to check. Then she stares stupidly at the dumb pink calendar for several long minutes.

She was supposed to have had her period two weeks ago.

That can't be right.

She's never been regular, exactly. For a while as a teenager she'd even stopped getting her period altogether, but it's been better the last few years and she hasn't missed one since junior year, not since –

Blair freezes, brain whirring. No, it isn't possible; it couldn't be. They always use something, always, because she's not on birth control right now and Dan knows that. The first time, she told him the very first time and he's been so good about it, even had a condom at the photoshoot and they hadn't even been regular then.

The only reason she's not on birth control is because the last one made her totally crazy and ten pounds heavier. She was taking time to figure out what to do next and it hadn't mattered because there hadn't been anyone for such a long time. Dan caught her in the wrong window of time.

They'd always used something, hadn't they?

Blair tries to remember if they ever skipped the condom even once but she can't. It hasn't been that long: four weeks, maybe five. She could probably still count the number of times they'd even been together. If she could still count the number of times they'd been together, it was much too soon for this.

Maybe they rushed it once or twice. They were still in a honeymoon phase, and Blair had a penchant for exhibitionism that Dan happily went along with. They must have slipped up, but it could only have been once, was that really enough to –

It is pregnancy brain that she can't remember anything, or is that panic?

She shakes her head, trying to take a breath and calm herself down. She's being crazy. She's overreacting.

But Dan had the same food she did and he didn't get sick. Iron stomach, he'd bragged.

Blair tricks Dorota into getting her a pregnancy test. With a brattiness that is at least fifty percent nerves, she snits, "Dorota, you're absolutely useless lately. The last time you were dragging this much it was because of that baby. Something you're not telling me?"

So Dorota is dispatched for a plethora of tests and when she returns, Blair absconds with one box.

She sticks it in the bottom of one of her bathroom drawers and then waits for Dorota to take her own tests – all of which, surprisingly, are positive. Surely it's gauche to be expecting concurrent with one's maid.

She congratulates and fake-smiles and magnanimously gives Dorota the afternoon off to go tell Vanya the good news. Then she drinks what feels like a gallon of water before going upstairs to pee on a stick.

Two, to be more specific. The box contains two tests.

While she waits the few minutes, sitting on the edge of her bathtub, her finger hovers over Dan's name in her phone's contact list. He would come over immediately. He would probably have wanted her to wait for him to take the test and he would probably hold her hand, be supportive, all those annoying Dan things he does.

Blair doesn't call him.

Both tests are positive.







Blair has plans with Dan that night, but she gets ready in a fugue, unable to stop thinking of the incriminating evidence crammed to the bottom of the bin. It must still be showing on her face when she steps over his threshold because he tips his head slightly and asks, "You okay?"

The entire cab ride over she debated what she should say but she reached no conclusions. When she opens her mouth, she honestly has no idea what's going to come out of it. "I think we should tell Serena."

"Really?" He hadn't expected that, clearly, and there's a note of skepticism in his voice – though his expression teeters on the edge of warm openness. "Tell her what, exactly?"

"That we're involved. That you're my –" Blair sees him wanting her to say the word, sees how badly he wants to hear it because she's had that same look herself many times before. As soon as the word leaves her lips, it will be official. "Boyfriend," she finishes.

She watches Dan relax automatically before his shoulders tense up and his expression goes carefully blank. Blair doesn't think she's ever met a boy so eager to commit. She remembers thinking it was strange in high school too, chalking it up to another facet of the Serena magic: as soon as she'd decide to choose a boy, of course he'd be instantly devoted.

His eyebrows draw together just slightly and it's with concern that he asks, "Is that what you want?"

Blair thinks of a B-shaped pancake. She thinks of the comforting sweep of a hand over her back. She thinks of kisses trailed over her thighs. She doesn't let herself think of those two accusing plus signs. "Yes," Blair says. "That's what I want."

And she gives herself up for a kiss. The feeling in her chest is fluttery and strange.

Blair insists upon telling Serena on her own, despite Dan's willingness to do it with her. She feels it's something she has to do by herself, a brittle and potentially horrible encounter that has to be one on one. It can't be her and Dan sitting across from Serena like two people delivering a fatal diagnosis.

"If you're sure," Dan says, maybe a little doubtfully. "This isn't your asking for help issue rearing its head again, is it?"

"No," Blair says impatiently. "I'm confused, do you really want to be the one to tell Serena you've been secretly screwing her best friend for a month? It's not exactly a prime volunteer task."

"Yeah, that's why I don't get why you want to do it."

Petulant, Blair says, "Because. Because I just – I have to." Because you're her boyfriend and I'm stealing you away. "Can you not be obnoxious and let me do this please? Consider yourself spared."

Dan doesn't look like he considers himself spared, but he lets the issue lie. "Fine," he says. "But I'm picking the movie."

Blair doesn't argue. Still, the rest of the evening is edgy. She's almost glad to have the Serena debacle as an excuse for it, even as the headache pulsing against her temples seems to take on a rhythm: pregnant, pregnant, you got me pregnant. Tired, she slumps against his shoulder, knowing he'll comfort her even if he's annoyed.

It's dangerous, that she's learning to count on Dan.

"It'll be okay," he promises with a squeeze, unaware which worry he's assuaging.

I hope so, Blair thinks.







Blair sits in class tapping her pen against her blank notebook page, thwack thwack thwack. Her foot echoes the sound, Tory Burch flat hitting the carpeted floor with a muffled but consistent tapping. Every minute feels as though it's stretching out to hour proportions and Blair isn't sure how much longer she can sit still, little as she's looking forward to what's coming after this.

Namely, lunch plans with Serena.

Blair can't tell if her stifling nausea is part of the resultant anxiety or…other things. Normally she has a yogurt before class but today the smell made her gag so much she had to skip it. And every time she sees her phone light up with a text, secreted as it is in her half-open bag, her stomach clenches painfully.

She practices saying the words in her head, giving them a different inflection each time. Dan is her boyfriend. Dan is her boyfriend. Dan is her boyfriend.

She can't concentrate, but when the professor dismisses them twenty minutes later, Blair remains in her seat as long as is feasibly possible. She's actually in danger of being late by the time she steps into the little café where they'd agreed to meet; Serena is even there before her, an unprecedented turn of events.

"B," Serena says brightly, beaming. "You didn't answer any of my texts!" She gestures at the barista behind the counter. "I ordered you a latte."

"I was in class," Blair says, then changes her order to a decaf herbal tea. At Serena's raised eyebrow, Blair defends, "I'm doing a cleanse!"

"Uh-huh," Serena says with a little laugh. "Come on, let's sit; I have major Lily complaining to do."

Blair listens to Serena ramble on while attempting to dole out some thoughtful advice despite her scattered brain, despite the fact that she's barely listening. It's rude; Blair is not a stranger to rudeness. All she can think about is herself.

Blair thinks about standing in her bathroom, eyes shut tight, praying to something she barely believes in, praying to herself. I command myself not to be pregnant.

Finally the conversation falters, and Serena says, "You're being weirdly…nice."

Blair gapes at her. "When am I not nice?" But Serena only gives her a pointed look, so Blair sighs. "I have something to tell you."

Serena makes an ahh sound, like that explains everything, and folds her hands on the tabletop, waiting. "Okay."

"You might not like it," Blair warns. "It's very shocking."

There is a trace of prepared wariness in the set of Serena's mouth but her face is otherwise friendly, in good cheer. "Should I guess?" she teases. "Are you dropping out of Columbia to go to a state school and start wearing off the rack dresses? I actually really hope it's that."

"No," Blair mutters.

But Serena is enjoying her guessing. "Are you moving upstate to start an organic farm? Are you secretly in love with Penelope? Have you decided to make Vanessa your best friend instead of me? Are you taking up artisanal honey-making? Are you and Dan madly in love?"

There's a long beat a silence while Blair fidgets with the tag of her teabag. "I wouldn't say madly in love."

The humor fades from Serena's expression in increments. "What?"

Blair clears her throat, still looking anywhere but at her friend. "Dan and I are…involved. Romantically. We are romantically involved."

"You're kidding," Serena says. When Blair does not confirm this, she slumps back in her seat. "I can't even imagine you two together. You don't even – When do you even see him?"

When Serena wouldn't be around to see, of course – never at parties or brunches, only in very private, very singular spaces. A relationship off the record.

"It started when we were helping you with Juliet," Blair offers. "And then there was W and, well… It just happened."

"But…Dan?" Serena says. "Dan Humphrey?"

The inflection is enough to almost make Blair smile, but she doesn't. "Yes. That's the one."

"You don't even like Dan. You hate Dan."

"I don't," Blair says, though it still feels like a strange insistence to make. Who would have ever suspected that one day she'd want to be with Dan Humphrey? "We have a real connection. We talk about films and art and – well, lots of things."

"Okay." Serena takes a breath.

"I like being with him," Blair admits, cheeks pinking. She makes herself study the wet brown ring her cup has left on the paper napkin. "I don't know. I mean, I know he has faults, believe me, I do – no one does judgmental condescension quite like Dan, and he's stubborn and just such a know-it-all, but… He makes me feel like…"

Like something in her chest is blooming. But that's too embarrassing to say, so Blair doesn't.

After a moment, voice small, Serena says, "Like you matter."

And Blair is faintly annoyed to share that with her – that knowledge, that feeling. "I suppose that's a way of putting it."

They suffer through a few more swallows of their respective drinks before Serena finds an excuse to leave – reassuring Blair, of course, that she is fine and everything is fine– and Blair doesn't really blame her. The Serena-and-Nate-are-dating situation of last year had been more private realization than sit down chat, but Blair can imagine that she wouldn't have done well sitting through it.

As she gets up to go, Blair dismisses all the texts from Serena she hadn't answered before and notices for the first time one message from Dorota.

Miss B, it says, Mama coming home.



PART TWO

crash and burn girl
dan/blair. serena. 11k words. s4 au.
w: abortion

PART ONE




"She would do this," Blair says, trying to keep the wild note of hysteria out of her voice. "She would give me a single day's notice before showing up."

She's sitting on the floor in front of Dan's coffee table, textbooks and notes spread across its surface, laptop open, checklist bleeding red ink. She was supposed to have things together before her mother got back. She was supposed to be able to present Eleanor with another perfect GPA and a shiny new internship, a list of accomplishments. Not what she has: a GPA still recovering from her sleepless weeks, no job prospects in sight, nothing at all accomplished except a lot of sex in Brooklyn. Which has obviously led nowhere good.

"Have you eaten today?" Dan clucks like a mother hen, setting a bowl of chicken and rice next to her without waiting for a response.

Blair is sick to her stomach. "I don't need to be hovered over, thank you, Humphrey," she snaps.

"Ah, Humphrey again," Dan says with disappointment. He drags the book out of her hands and replaces it pointedly with the bowl of food. "I thought after the Serena thing going well, I might get upgraded to a first name full time."

Blair rolls her eyes and sets the food aside. "I'm not hungry, Brooklyn."

"You wound me," he calls on his way back into the kitchen.

She watches him move around, cleaning and loading the dishwasher, putting everything to rights. He would be a good father. It's not exactly revelatory, as revelations go, but it's the first time it might affect her.

"You know you should ask your mother."

Blair's lips tighten, nice thoughts vanishing in a puff of smoke. "No."

Dan looks up from where he's wiping down the counter, arching an eyebrow. "You should ask your mother," he repeats, as he has periodically in the last few weeks. "You cannot expect me to believe that Eleanor Waldorf doesn't have connections at any high-fashion magazines. Ask her for help."

"Leave me alone, Cabbage Patch," Blair says irritably.

"You're already a spoiled brat, might as well take advantage of it." He makes his way back over, leaning down to press a kiss into her hair. "It's not like you have no talent. You just need to get your foot in the door, so to speak."

"I can't believe the poster boy for middle class ingenuity is telling me to use my connections."

Dan drops into the nearest armchair, smile tugging at his lips. "Now that's a title I haven't had before," he says. "It's just that… Look. We both know you can do this on your own, but you've been killing yourself for months, and if Eleanor's help could make you slow down and breathe for five minutes, then I'm all for it."

Blair tilts her head, smiling a little despite herself. "So your pushiness is just your way of expressing concern?"

He ducks his head, sheepish. "Apparently."

"Lucky for you I'm familiar with that." She shifts over, laying her hands on his knees and then sliding them up his thighs. "It's sort of cute on you."

Dan's brows raise as one. "Your shifts in mood are impossible to predict."

Blair doesn't want to hear things like that, things that could be explained by words like hormones– but, more likely, just crazy. "Enjoy it while it lasts," she says, reaching for his belt buckle.

Dan sinks down in the armchair, doing that boy slouch, and when she looks up at him it's all sharp jaw, cheekbones. His head tips back enough to make his throat one long arc. He never grabs her hair unless she tells him to, which Blair appreciates, and even now his hands scrabble upwards for the back of the chair instead, sliding against upholstery, digging in.

Dan always smells very faintly of leather, the good kind, and paperbacks, Tom Ford cologne and the L'Occitane almond oil Blair keeps in his shower. He smells warm and homey, like falling asleep on his shoulder watching The Philadelphia Story, like someplace she could land without breaking.

He would be good, if.







Their first official outing as a couple would, of course, end up coinciding with an Eleanor Waldorf dinner party, just to cause Blair the maximum amount of stress at the worst time. Blair fusses beforehand, insisting on final wardrobe approval; she dithers for hours before settling on a cool gray suit, shirt pearl-gray and tie a darker slate, perfectly tailored but still looking a little out of sorts on a boy who prefers cardigans to tuxedos. He looks good when he wants to. Blair decides to match him in silver, thinking of it like armor, the two of them protected and prepared for the night ahead.

"If you adjust my tie any more you're going to strangle me," Dan says in the elevator, pushing her hands away.

"Don't give me ideas," Blair mutters darkly.

"Don't worry. Worst case scenario, she makes me tend bar again."

"She absolutely will not." As the doors open, Blair grabs his arm and pulls him out into the room, just catching his smile out of the corner of her eye.

It's still cocktail hour. The entire apartment has been transformed for the night, switched around so the living room can accommodate a long table glimmering faintly with candlelight and silver. Eleanor is holding court in the repurposed dining room, now home to a bar and a roving pack of middle-aged socialites and their balding husbands. It's mostly an older crowd, thank god, so Blair doesn't have to flash Dan around to all their peers yet. Though Serena should be here, somewhere – maybe still upstairs, putting on the finishing touches. Serena will be here.

Blair lets her hand slip into Dan's as they cross the room, fingers interlocking. This will be fine. This will be fine. This will be fine.

"Mother?" she ventures, interrupting a patter of laughter that followed Eleanor's latest dry witticism.

"Daughter," Eleanor returns. Her gaze, sharp and assessing as always, takes in Blair from head to toe, down to the tennis bracelet at her wrist, her hand in Dan's, and then Dan himself. Eleanor looks him over critically, as though she's never met him before. "And Serena's young man."

Blair bites the inside of her cheek, but without so much as a twitch or bat of an eyelash, Dan holds out his hand for Eleanor to shake. "Your daughter's, actually," he says. "C'mon, Mrs. Waldorf, I know you remember my name."

Against all odds, Eleanor smirks just slightly. "And I know you remember my drink order," she says. "Off you go, Mr. Humphrey."

He gives Blair an apologetic look, squeezing her fingers before leaving her to her mother.

"So that's new," Eleanor says. "Isn't it?"

"I suppose," Blair says, waving a fidgety hand. "How's the new house? I can't wait to see it."

It's the right thing to say; her mother launches into a fresh round of complaints about the house, the renovations, the neighbors. Blair tries to nod along attentively but finds her attention straying. Cyrus has intercepted Dan and appears to be telling a grand story if the hand gestures are any indication.

Eleanor, of course, notices. "Are you going to tell me how this started?"

"How it usually does," Blair says. "Went on a few dates, went on a few more."

Eleanor scoffs, but with that distinct twist of humor that is her hallmark. "Are you sure this is wise, Blair?"

"No," Blair says, squashing a smile as Dan shoots her a wide-eyed help me expression. "But I'm going to do it all the same."

She walks away before her mother can say anything to that, sliding her arm through Dan's and happily giving in to Cyrus' relentless positivity for once. He gives her at least three hugs, as per usual, and on the last one stage whispers, "I like him," just loud enough for Dan to hear.

It's grotesquely embarrassing in a way Blair does not exactly mind.

The dinner goes rather well, if only because Blair avoids her mother entirely and Dan is good at entertaining her, murmuring a slightly mean and very funny commentary in her ear throughout the evening. Serena ultimately doesn't show; it fills Blair with mingled relief and queasiness.

Towards the end of the night, Blair leans heavily into his shoulder. "Verdict?"

"We're together, everyone knows, and the world didn't end. I'm calling it, it's a win." Dan pauses. "Wait, has anyone told Nate?"

Blair smiles, trying to ignore the roiling in her stomach. She had to escape dinner once already for not-only-morning sickness, feeling her mother's eyes on her back the entire time. Despite her best efforts, it must show in her face.

"Want me to stay?" Dan asks, brushing her hair back. "I can sneak out really early, dodge your parents and everything."

Blair had spent the last three days at Dan's, hadn't stepped foot in her own home once and hardly missed it. She's beginning to worry about it a bit. She feels vulnerable and clingy, especially with her mother home, and in the past that has only been a precursor to disappearing. She slides away from him, leaning back into her chair. "I'll survive," she tells him.

"But will I?" Dan teases, and something pleasant swims through Blair's chest. Idiot, she thinks, but couldn't say if she meant him or herself.

In the morning Blair shuffles downstairs to find only Eleanor at the breakfast table. Everything has already been returned to its rightful place, the apartment as spotless as if it had never seen a party at all. Blair is exhausted despite a near seven hours of sleep and she's cranky, resentful. Her stomach rebels at the prepared spread so she settles on some green tea and very dry toast.

"Hungover?" Eleanor asks, peering at Blair over her glasses, newspaper open between her hands.

Blair wishes. Instead of answering, she says, "The dinner seemed to be a success."

"Mm." She lifts her coffee to her lips, turns a page. "I take it Mr. Humphrey didn't stay the night."

"You can call him Dan, Mother," Blair says, exasperated. "If I learned to, surely anyone can." Eleanor merely gives her a very flat look, so Blair is compelled to add, "No, he did not stay. That would hardly be appropriate."

"Hardly," Eleanor agrees. "Especially with Serena asleep on the other side of the door."

Blair frowns. In her hands her toast becomes a pile of crumbs. Serena knows, she wants to say. This isn't any of your business. No one cared when Serena went out with my boyfriend. Dan is funny, isn't he, and smart and handsome, isn't that enough? When is it enough?

"I meant with you and Cyrus here," Blair says.

Blair imagines telling Eleanor about the stick turning pink, unplanned and unexpected as it is. It's a thought that had crossed her mind before, back in high school, and she imagines the reaction then or now would be much the same. There is rarely any real comfort coming from Eleanor, just criticism, just disappointment, just do better.

Finally Eleanor folds her paper and pushes her glasses onto her head, standing with her cup in one hand. "I like him more than the last one," she says. "You like him?"

Blair looks up at her. "Obviously, Mother."

Eleanor nods a little and smoothes a hand over Blair's hair before moving towards the staircase, but she doesn't say anything else.

Blair isn't sure what to call it. With her mother, somehow wins usually feel like losses anyway.







Blair sees Serena across a courtyard at Columbia and it's startling for a moment, like Serena is a too-familiar stranger. It's a moment of unknowing, seeing a tall blonde girl and realizing half a second later it's someone important to her. They haven't spoken in two weeks, maybe. Blair's been busy.

Eleanor and Cyrus have taken up residence in New York for the foreseeable future, which means Blair has been spending even more time at Dan's in an effort to avoid her mother's semi-watchful eye. Though there had been an official boyfriend-meets-the-family brunch where Dan had the honor of fielding both Cyrus' well-meaning inquiries and Eleanor's less well-meaning interrogation.

Afterwards, Blair offered, "Over the summer, you can meet Daddy," and made sure not to look at Dan as she said it. She wouldn't let herself take it back either, not when Dan was trying so hard to appear as though he wasn't pleased, muttering something about bringing her up to Hudson.

But that had been the least of her obligations: Blair's hassling of every magazine in the tri-state area had finally yielded results.

It had become automatic to check her email immediately upon waking, though considering her endeavors had been mostly fruitless, Blair hadn't had much hope. Yet there it was in clear black and white, subject line reading re: Teen Vogue internship.

Blair smacked Dan awake. "You have to read this for me!"

He peered at her with one squinting eye, which was apparently enough to gauge how desperate the situation was, because he held out his hand. There was a lot of grumbling and eye-rubbing until Dan quieted down to read the email, smiled at her, and said, "You got it, Waldorf."

Blair had been so happy that she made the abrupt wake-up very worth his while. They lay together later, Blair fairly thrumming with contentment, and Dan whispered with an air of confession that he'd started a novel.

Everything is beginning to feel as though it's on track, everything going right for once, and there isn't anything in the world more terrifying to Blair than that.

(There is also, of course, the time bomb ticking away in her body.)

Serena smiles at her across the sunny courtyard and raises a hand in a wave. They meet in the middle, clutching books and bags anxiously, feeling as though two weeks has been two years.

"Got time for lunch?" Serena asks.

They go somewhere nearby that's packed with way too many students. They squeeze into a corner table that rightfully seats four, but Blair drops her bag pointedly on the empty end to dissuade anyone looking for a spot to sit.

After several moments of silence, Blair tries for small talk, internally cringing. "So…how are you? How's – how's Lily, your family?"

Serena waves that off. "Doing her classic denial thing. But it's fine, it's going to be fine."

Blair nods, attempting to look supportive and resolute. "I've been keeping up a little, through –" She falters. "Well, the news, I suppose, like anyone else."

Serena just looks at her and then she says gently, "You can say his name. I won't implode." But her gaze is focused on her salad instead of Blair when she speaks next. "How are things going?"

Blair fiddles with her heart ring, twisting it around her finger. "Good," she says hesitantly, then clears her throat and continues more assertively, giving Serena a short run-down of everything that had happened recently. Almost everything. "I thought it would be weird, dating him. I mean, not that I thought about it an awful lot before, just, I don't know, I thought it would be a lot to get used to. But it's not, it's…easy."

"I'm so happy for you, B." Serena gives her a smile that's mostly there, though her eyes remain a little distant. "It seems like everything's going your way."

Blair intends to return the smile, maybe change the subject to something safer, but instead she quite unexpectedly bursts into tears.

Blair is not the kind of girl who cries in public, not if she can help it, but there she is doing it nonetheless. Serena is taken aback but recovers lightning-fast, grabbing Blair's bag before hustling her outside and into a cab so quickly it's possible the event occurred un-spotted. Blair hopes so; she couldn't handle the Gossip Girl commentary today.

In the cab Serena rubs her back, looking worried. "B, what's going on?"

Blair shakes her head, gulping air, and then the words find their way out of her anyway.

Serena's eyes widen. "What?"

"I'm pregnant," Blair says again, loudly, almost angrily. "I'm pregnant, that's why I'm – that's why I start crying in cafés, apparently, and why my mother thinks I'm relapsing and why I pick fights with Dan and why I can't look you in the eye lately –"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down," Serena says, brow still furrowed in concern. "Let's – we have to go somewhere quiet to talk."

Serena calls ahead to make sure the penthouse is empty of parents and to send Dorota out on some errands. Blair is grateful. She's even more grateful that Serena holds back all questions until they are curled in Blair's bed like when they were young, amongst piles of pillows.

"You're sure?" is the first inquiry, followed by, "It's, um. It's Dan's?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I saw the doctor," Blair says. "And yes. There hasn't been anyone else."

Serena worries her bottom lip but does a remarkable job of pretending that has no effect on her. "Are you going to have it?"

Blair is silent.

Serena seems to accept that as an answer. "Did you make the appointment?"

It feels childish and silly that she hasn't. Blair should have been able to take care of this efficiently as soon as she found out but she hadn't; she'd ignored it, buried it, denied it. She did what she's always done and now she feels her immaturity acutely. Did she think it was just going to go away? "Not yet."

Serena observes her impassively for a moment. Then she says, "It's okay."

Blair gives her a slightly incredulous look. "Nothing about this is okay."

Serena's expression softens into one of more open concern. "I meant it's okay to not want it. It's okay to be confused. It's okay to be afraid."

"Oh, how would you know," Blair says, snappish because she doesn't know any other way to be. Dan would want it, she thinks. It doesn't matter how uncertain their relationship is, that's the kind of guy Dan is: he would want it.

Serena is probably too used to Blair's unnecessary attitude by now and no reaction at all shows on her face. "I know," she says after a minute. "I had one."

For one wild, horrifying second, Blair thinks Serena means she had a baby. "When?" Blair demands, almost indignant. "How could I not know about this?"

Serena presses her lips together to prevent something like a smile at Blair's tone, and then shakes it off, growing more serious. "I was fourteen," she says. "It was the beginning of freshman year, it must've…um, happened in the summer. I took a test and Lily found it and, well. She took care of it."

Blair's brows draw together. "You should've told me, S."

Serena shrugs. "I was a kid. I didn't even want to think about it much."

"Do you?" Blair wonders. "Think about it much."

"Sometimes," Serena allows. "But it was so long ago it's like it happened to someone else."

"Do you ever regret it?" Blair asks.

"No," Serena says.

Blair nods a little, gaze dropping down to study the stitching of the duvet. "Dan would be so good at it, you know." Apologetically, she adds, "Of course you know. I don't just mean that whole thing with Georgina's baby. He would be so patient and so – so devoted." It's a hushed, almost embarrassed statement next. "He would be such a good dad." And maybe his goodness would make Blair better in turn – less scared, more capable, less Eleanor.

"Yeah," Serena says with a dip of her head. "He would. But what do you want?"

Blair already knows the answer, of course. She has since the first second she saw that pink symbol. "I want the abortion." Her hand finds Serena's over the blanket. "Will you come?"

"Of course," Serena says with the kind of tenderness and immediacy that releases tension Blair didn't even realize she was holding. "But…" Serena hesitates. "Are you going to tell Dan?" Blair only shrugs. "Because he'd – I think he would be understanding. And I think he'd want to know."

"I don't know," Blair says, just to say something. Then she rubs a hand through her hair, careless of styling. "What if it ends up on Gossip Girl?"

Serena squeezes Blair's fingers again. "Then I'll say it's me."

It's firm, unhesitating, and Blair meets Serena's eyes, feeling so grateful she doesn't even know what to say.

The next time she's with Dan, Blair lays awake while he breathes beside her, even and quiet. She glances over to make sure he's asleep before pushing the comforter away and laying a hand atop her own flat stomach. There's nothing to give it away. Blair has always kept an eye to the shape of her stomach and she's certainly not forgiving, but there's no denying that no one would ever be able to tell.

She thinks of dinner with her mother, Dan's hand on her knee under the table – not lascivious or anything like that, just supportive. Just his way of saying I'm here.

But she still doesn't know how to tell him.







There's no reason to wait after that.

Once it becomes a shared secret instead of Blair's private panic, she can't very well go on pretending it's not happening. She calls the doctor and makes her appointment, placing a little red dot in the corner of the chosen date in her schedule.

She can't eat anything the morning of, not that she would be able to anyway. She makes an early appointment in the hopes of being in and out with little fanfare, so she and Serena are both sleepy and red-eyed when they arrive at the office – on the West Side, not Blair's usual doctor. Just to be safe.

Blair is tense as she waits, fills out more forms, signs off on her consent. She feels brittle. Serena tries to rub her back briefly but gives up; the attempt at comfort only makes Blair inexplicably angry. She just wants it to be over.

Even once they call her in it takes too long for Blair's liking. She has to hear another lecture about options and birth control, take another pregnancy test ("I've taken about fifty by now," Blair says tightly. "I promise, it's in there."), another blood test, another sonogram. Serena is by her side the whole time, being open and kind, asking appropriate questions of the doctor whereas Blair can only grit her teeth in annoyed impatience. At least they finally give her some Vicodin, but then she has to wait even longer for it to take effect.

When it's finally time, Serena is sent back to the waiting room, but only after pressing a kiss to Blair's temple. "It'll be done before you know it, B," she promises.

Blair had thought that the waiting room was the worst part – sitting amongst all those similarly fidgety women who didn't want to make eye contact. But she thinks it's absolutely worse in the bustling minutes before the procedure, her head pillowed on crinkling paper, listening to the patter and chatter of nurses while her heart hammers out of her chest. She should've told Dan. Why hadn't she told Dan?

Blair jumps when the nurse touches her shoulder.

"Nervous, honey?" the nurse asks, nodding towards the machine where Blair's heart rate is zipping along.

"I'm fine," Blair says automatically. If Dan were here, he'd make some stupid joke that would make her anxiety dissipate despite herself.

Once the doctor arrives there's an uptick in activity, everyone making final checks and every single person in the room asking Blair how she is one more time. The doctor, a brisk middle-aged woman, gives Blair an impersonal pat on the shoulder and tells her it's time to begin. The anesthesiologist injects something into the IV.

Blair has long enough to wonder when it's going to kick in before she's out, and the next thing she's aware of is coming to hazily in recovery. There are other women around her with similarly vague, drugged up smiles. A nurse gives her a pleasant, encouraging look and offers her a tiny paper cup of apple juice. The tape from the IV has left a splotchy patch of itchy skin on the inside of her elbow, though the needle mark itself is imperceptible.

It's over, Blair realizes. She smiles and then she laughs, a silly drunk giggle. It's over. Her reaction is inappropriate, ridiculous, and she knows her giddiness is just the sedatives wearing off but the sense of relief is overwhelming. She just feels so good, so relieved, so free.







Blair spends the following three days not answering her phone. Then the pile up of texts from Dan (Waldorf I'm beginning to think you're dead in a ditch somewhere) start to become so ridiculous she has to say something, though all she comes up with are lame protestations about work.

"He even called me asking about you," Serena says. "You have to talk to him, B."

But Blair has not yet developed a course of action for her first conversation with Dan post-abortion. She's terrified that it'll just burst out of her mouth the second she sees his face so she continues to keep him at arm's length, choosing instead to mope around the penthouse in silk pajamas reading a Judy Garland biography.

She crosses paths with Eleanor in the kitchen one morning. Blair doesn't have work or class so she's planning to settle in for a long moody sulk full of imagined conversations with Dan that she's too chicken to have in reality. Eleanor observes her with passive interest as the water brews for tea. "Have you broken up with Mr. Humphrey?"

Blair starts. "No," she says, a touch snottily.

Eleanor nods slightly. "Have you had a fight then?"

"What's with the sudden interest, Mother?"

"Aren't I allowed to be interested in my daughter's life? As far as I know that is part of the job description."

Blair rolls her eyes. "No, we haven't," she says. "I'm avoiding him."

Eleanor arches an eyebrow. "Oh?"

It had just slipped out; Blair hadn't meant to say anything. "It's nothing," she backtracks. "It's stupid."

"Hmph," Eleanor murmurs. "And that internship, that's going well?"

Blair narrows her eyes, her skin prickling with familiar defensiveness. She could never tell the difference between Eleanor caring and Eleanor criticizing. Is she just looking for gaps in Blair's story? "What do you want to hear, Mother? I made a mess of everything, alright? I've been ruining things for myself forever, really, and I wasted the entire year but now I'm fixing it. I'm putting it back together. I don't need your needling."

"You always think the worst of me," Eleanor says lightly. "I know how hard you've been working, Blair. I'm proud of you."

Blair can't help a blink of surprise but she refuses to take the words to heart. "Oh."

"I'm not so wicked all the time," Eleanor reminds her and smiles just slightly. Blair's greatest fear has always been becoming her mother because she knows how easy it would be, how much it's already true.

"I know," Blair says, almost apologetic. "Me either."

She's tempted, for a moment, to tell her mother about the pregnancy and its subsequent dissolution. Eleanor is a liberal woman and she's never been sentimental or precious about things; she might be critical, but Blair isn't so sure she'd be condemning. Her mouth opens but then it shuts, and instead of speaking she gives her mother a small smile in return. Even without fear of recrimination, she doesn't trust Eleanor enough. Maybe one day.

Until then, Blair has Serena. And she's beginning to accept that she has Dan too.

I miss you, she texts him, finally. Come over.







Blair is sitting on her bed pretending to read a magazine when Dan arrives. The first thing she does is get her arms around him, savoring the way he feels, the way he smells. God, she's ridiculous. It hasn't even been a week.

"You'd think you hadn't seen me in years," he teases her, but he sounds happy enough about it. "I was going a little crazy. I thought you were breaking up with me."

"Don't be silly." Blair has always liked the way Dan says things straight out, no obfuscating. "But I do have to tell you something."

"Can it hold?" Dan asks, leaning into her so much she tips over laughing. "Maybe you could kiss me first?"

Blair does but she's conscious that it can't go farther than that, even though she still twists her arms around his neck, brings her leg around his hips. "Dan," she protests with another laugh she can't help – this is serious, he's going to think she doesn't have a heart at all once she tells him. She sobers after another kiss, puts her hand on his chest. "We really do have to talk."

He props himself on his elbow, shifting so he's next to her on the bed. "Oh no," he says. "Those words are never good."

Blair bites her lip, running her fingertips over his cheek. "I don't want you to hate me."

His expression shifts to genuine wariness, which Blair had been afraid of. "What happened?"

"I took a test," Blair says. "A pregnancy test. It was –" She clears her throat. "I made an appointment and I took care of it."

Dan's face changes though Blair can't read anger in it, at least not yet – confusion, certainly, and blank, flat surprise. He pushes upright, shifting to sit at the edge of the bed. His back is to her. "You mean…"

"You got me pregnant and I had an abortion," she says, abrupt and rushed.

"When?"

"Monday morning," Blair says. "I wasn't sick, or busy with work."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Dan asks and Blair steels herself for his anger. But then he says, "I would've come with you." He looks over his shoulder, brows knotted with concern. "You didn't have to do it by yourself."

"You don't – you're not mad?"

"I wish you'd told me." It isn't an answer, but when she sits up and curls against his back, chin on his shoulder and hands clasped over his chest, he covers her fingers with his. "I wouldn't have… I'd support whatever you wanted to do. You know that, right?"

"I do now," Blair murmurs. They're quiet for a moment as she leans her cheek against his shoulder. "I wish I'd told you too."

She hesitates to say more, considering he's reacting well; she doesn't know if it would bother him to hear her say that she was afraid to tell him because she was afraid he might convince her to keep it. The fact that such a thing was even a possibility makes her worried about his effect on her. It could be dangerous. She knows all about that.

"It was just so soon," she adds, still soft-voiced. "I want to date you. I don't want…all those other things. I didn't want to lose what I have with you before I'd even really had it."

Dan tilts slightly so he can kiss the side of her nose. "That's what I want too, Waldorf." He pauses. "Okay, but: when did we not use a condom?"

"Right!" Blair says, indignant. "We're switching brands. I'm not satisfied with the margin of error."

Dan's lips twitch with suppressed laughter before he kisses her and Blair knows it's going to be fine, everything is going to be fine.







Summer finds Blair and Serena moving out of the penthouse.

They choose a newer building, farther East than Blair would like, and the kitchen is an absolute joke, but it's fresh and clean, painted an all-over shining white, and the floor-to-ceiling windows are laughably delightful. She and Serena clash over every single design decision, but Blair likes that too.

"You're still too far," Dan complains every time he comes over.

"No one told you to live in Brooklyn," Blair tells him.

"We can't compromise here? You couldn't have chosen somewhere in Midtown, at least?"

"God, if the next thing out of your mouth is a suggestion I live downtown, then I'm walking out, I don't care if this is my apartment."

But compromise is something they endeavor to keep in mind, and Blair spends at least half her time in his loft. And it's on one such occasion, going through his desk looking for Post-Its (honestly) that she finds a neatly printed hardcopy of his novel, covered in red ink corrections in Dan's own handwriting. Of course she sits down immediately in the desk chair and reads it start to finish.

"Humphrey," she calls after she's done. "I take issue with your prose. You have not described my eyes as 'sparkling' even once."

Dan appears in the doorway in record time. "You did not," he says.

Blair bites her lip, eyebrows raising as she holds up the manuscript. "I might have. Tell me: have you been holding a candle this entire time, then?"

"We're breaking up," Dan tells her. He moves to grab the pages, which Blair dangles out of reach. "That's it. This is my line in the sand."

"Don't you think," Blair says, hopping up out of her seat so she can dodge his attempts, "that 'ninety-eight pound, bon-mot tossing, label-whoring package of girly evil' is one signifier too many?"

She lets him catch her but the pages go everywhere, all out of order, a cascade of crinkling paper all around them. "Not when all of them are true," Dan says, practically picking her up. "Especially that last one. Totally evil."

Blair grins before she kisses him. "You're horribly sentimental," she says. "And a revisionist. I loved it."

"Yeah, well, you would," he says, smile tugging at his own lips. "Pot, kettle."

"It's either very lucky or very unfortunate that we found each other," Blair says.

"Both, I think," Dan tells her. "But maybe that second one a little more."

"Yes," she agrees, "I certainly feel very unlucky."

Assignments are out! You should receive an email notification (check your spam folder!) but if not, you can also check the “my assignments” section of AO3. If you stiiiiill aren’t seeing it, let me know and I will cry, slam my fists against the earth, and curse AO3′s name.

Assignments are due by August 30th, so I’ll see you then! I’ll post little nagging reminders every so often until then.

F I C
needle in the hay. dan/serena. tw incest.
the best you ever had. dan/carter.
crash and burn girl. dan/blair. tw aboriton.


R E C A P S
1x03: barbie's sleepover and daniel/sofia's beach date
1x04: photoshoot for eleanor's clothing line
1x05: masked ball and max/barbie sex


F A N M I X E S
brooklyn baby. gg; jenny x agnes.
cold irons bound. marvel; natasha.


M I S C.
five things meme: female characters, unconventional crushes, obscure gay ships, joan holloway scenes

tell me something true
dan/blair. jenny, vanessa, iz, penelope, nate.
s1 au. 14k words. Selfie/Drive Me Crazy-inspired.

summary:It was simple, really: Blair would take Dan from pariah to belle of the ball (she'd done much more with much less in the past), and he would make her…socially pleasant to be around and more considerate of others.

note: for lookinglassgirl! your prompt was too too too good, I was so excited to write it. I only hope I did it justice! please accept this belated Christmas gift as a belated birthday gift (so belated omg I'm the worst)! this fic is 50% selfie, 50% drive me crazy, 100% idiots.






"This is not going to work," Dan says.

Monday morning finds Dan and Blair standing side by side at the base of the school steps, twin looks of determination on their faces. For the first time in his life, Dan has had his uniform pressed. He has a haircut. He's carrying a new leather bag with his initials stamped in it: DJH.

"It's going to work," Blair says in a way that leaves no room for disagreement. "I paid for that haircut, it's going to work."

Dan sighs a little. He sticks out his hand. "Now or never."

Blair's nose wrinkles in distaste but she closes her fingers around his. "It'll work," she says again. "I just hope I don't regret it."

Dan has already started up the stairs, tugging her along. "One way to find out."







For that to make sense, one would first have to know this: in a very short time, Blair's life went spectacularly to pieces.

Her best friend disappeared off the face of the earth, she found out her boyfriend cheated on her with said best friend, she cheated on her boyfriend with his best friend, her dad moved halfway across the world, and after a much too public pregnancy scare she was the laughingstock of the entire school. Oh, and all her remaining friends decided she wasn't worth being friends with anymore.

She found out relatively quickly that nobody really liked her, and if the comments on Gossip Girl were anything to go by, they were glad to see her fall. It was a big dose of reality for a girl who didn't even like small ones.

That set off a chain reaction: because Blair found herself in the middle of her junior year suddenly friendless, she did pathetic things like lurk in the library during lunch. And because she was lurking in the library during lunch, she met Dan Humphrey, who had spent every lunch period of the last few years lurking in the library because he hadn't had any friends to start with.

The most embarrassing part was that she had been…well, she had been sort of crying.

Penelope of all people had humiliated Blair in homeroom (it was just some stupid little comment, but everyone in class had laughed uproariously as though it was the height of wit) and she'd been bottling up her reaction all day because she didn't want anyone to see her upset. So as soon as the bell rang for lunch, she made a break for the dullest section of the library, sat right down on the floor, and cried.

It wasn't like she expected anyone to see her. Who goes to the Latin Grammar section to find themselves a book?

The boy that turned the corner froze like Bambi at the wrong end of a shotgun. "Uh," he said, very eloquently. "You okay?"

"Do I look okay?" Blair snapped. She rubbed impatiently at her tears with the heel of her hand, clambering to her feet. "You can't just go around walking in on people. That is highly impolite."

"We are literally in a public place," he said. "Seriously, though, are you –" He paused uncertainly, teeth worrying his lip for a brief moment. "You're Blair Waldorf, right?"

"Yes, that's me." She elbowed past him. "No comments please."

But he stopped her, touched her arm lightly, and said with sincerity, "Hey, I'm sorry. I think everyone's being pretty shitty to you."

Blair paused. It had been weeks since anyone had been even a little bit nice to her.

"Why would I care about some nobody's opinion?" Blair said, and left.







She ran into him in the library a few times after that. Not that she spoke to him – hardly. But she would see him, sitting alone a couple of tables away. Once their eyes met and he nodded, curt and perfunctory.

She had no idea who he was, that he was even in her grade, until she happened to catch him filing out of a classroom after Nate one day. Not that she was looking for Nate or anything. She couldn't control every single thing her gaze happened to fall on.

Their schools were not large schools, so it was strange for her to not recognize someone in her grade. The library guy could be a transfer, but then it would be even stranger for her to not have heard of him. It was all highly suspicious.

"You know," she said in the library one lunch period, "I wasn't crying. The other day."

He looked up from his book, startled. "Okay?"

"I had something in my eye. Just to clarify."

He nodded and they returned to their books. Then he said, "You know my sister, I think. Jenny?"

Blair blinked; Jenny had a brother? She looked over at him again, this time searching for similarities, and found very few. Maybe around the mouth. "Ah. Right. Jenny Humphrey."

Jenny, to her credit, had tried to stick around post-fallout but Blair wasn't interested in charity case friendships.

"She feels really – uh, well, she likes you a lot, and I don't think she necessarily agrees with, uh, everything," he said. "She doesn't think that –"

"That I'm a big slut who got what's coming to her?" Blair said bluntly. She liked to say things very bluntly occasionally, if only to get ahead of other people saying them instead. "Well, she's the only one."

"I'm sure that's not true," he said.

Blair raised an eyebrow. "Really? Then why am I sitting all alone in the library with –"

She had no idea what his name was. He supplied, "Dan."

"With Jenny Humphrey's brother," Blair continued. "Everyone thinks I'm awful. And maybe I am. I cheated on Nate. I did it specifically to make him feel bad, as revenge. And it isn't like I'm a stranger to things like that. There was this girl, Macy Lane Matthews, who scored higher than me on last year's history final, so I had the girls serve her a Nairtini at Isabel Coates' pool party. That's not a normal thing to do, right? I do things like that all the time. The girls were just putting up with me. And now they don't have to."

He was quiet like he didn't know what to say. "Have you ever tried being nicer?"

Blair rolled her eyes, now stupidly wet. "Gee, never would have thought of that."

With the kind of good humor often reserved for people about to cry, he said, "C'mon, give it a shot. Say something nice to me."

She had no idea what kind of nice thing one said to a stranger. She wrinkled her nose. "Your clothes are rumpled and your blazer is ill-fitting."

He stared at her. "That is actually the opposite of what you were supposed to do."

"Well I'm not very good at this!" she exclaimed.

"Obviously."

"I just don't know how." Blair slumped in her chair a little, arms crossing. "This is stupid."

"Hey, it's not so bad on this side of the fence," Dan tried. "Quiet. No one bothers you. It's like you're invisible. You just have to get used to birds flying into your head and automatic doors never opening."

Blair refused to crack a smile.

"Oh, what do you know," she huffed, and was luckily rescued by the ringing of the bell. For once she was eager to go back to class.







The idea came to her sometime between the end of that day and the beginning of the next one. It was a little crazy, but the best plans always were.

The next time she was in the library, she sat directly next to Dan.

"Nobody likes me," Blair said. She felt a sting at the words, but there was really no use dancing around it at this point. "Nobody knows you." She had researched him a little bit in the interim between idea-having and plan-executing. "I do, now," she continued, and off his look, "I like to keep an eye out for academic rivals. You're in the top five at St. Jude's."

He contemplated her with very faint suspicion. "Top three."

Something in the almost haughty way he said that only reassured her that she was taking the right course of action. "Look, I need an image overhaul. And you need relevancy. Desperately."

Amused, Dan asked, "Oh, do I?"

"Don't tell me you like hiding out here every day. You just do it because you don't have any other options."

"Please, stranger, tell me more about my life."

Blair ignored him. "You can help me and I can help you. A mutually beneficial arrangement. Symbiotic."

His brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

And Blair told him.







That was two weeks ago, which brings everything back to Monday morning at school and two people preparing to embark on a venture that (in Dan's opinion, anyway) will undoubtedly crash and burn.

"But you're still doing it, aren't you?" Blair asks triumphantly.

Dan mutters, "Yeah, and I should have my head examined."

It was simple, really: Blair would take Dan from pariah to belle of the ball (she'd done much more with much less in the past), and he would make her…socially pleasant to be around and more considerate of others.

"I'm only doing this because I feel bad for you," Dan says.

"Back at you," Blair tells him.







There is also the part about making Nate sick with jealousy.

It isn't the main intention of The Plan but it is certainly a feature. A new boy on her arm will distract from Blair's disastrous love life and the mystery about who he is will be better gossip than her stealth pregnancy test. It's classic misdirection. They'll all be looking left at the shiny new faux-boyfriend and Blair will be running right past them into being a better, more evolved person.

"I feel like your logic is…questionable at best," Dan says. "Also I thought you said part of this was about helping me meet girls. How am I supposed to meet a girl when I'm fake-dating you?"

"Easy. Being seen with me will increase your value. It'll give you value."

"I thought nobody liked you anymore."

Stung but refusing to show it, she says, "I'm still a Waldorf. And this is what I do best – who is the most eligible boy at St. Jude's, hm? And how do you think he got that way? Nate Archibald wasn't born with perfect hair and manners. I made him. I am an expert at crafting the perfect boyfriend. Which you will be, for someone else, once I'm queen bee again and we have an amicable faux-breakup."

Dan spends a lot of time just looking at her like she has two heads. "Is this another of your revenge things or do you actually want to be better? Because if it's the former, I'm honestly not –"

"I do," she interrupts, but then repeats more firmly, "I do."

He doesn't respond immediately, trying to gauge her sincerity. Apparently deeming her sincere enough, he sighs and says, "I think we are definitely going to regret this."







Blair is up before dawn the morning following their debut, eagerly scrolling through Gossip Girl at her desk. There's only one post, sandwiched between Kati's new custom-made flats and Penelope's apparently trendsetting jewelry choices (which, please; Blair went through a heart-themed jewelry phase when she was thirteen, it's over), but it has more comments than both so Blair is satisfied.

The first picture is of Blair sitting with Dan dead center in the courtyard, lifting her hand to fuss with his hair, which had a natural curl that was fighting her styling. They look far from blissfully happy but that only seems to sell it – Blair's little frown and Dan's half-rolled eyes conspiring to make them look comfortable, like a real couple. The second picture is even more promising. In it she looks away, attention caught by something, and Dan is giving her a curious look, almost smiling. The title of the post reads, in bold pink, Has B moved on from her torrid past?

Blair practically thrums with excitement. Her gaze is drawn to the second picture for another moment before she goes to read the comments, steeling herself for the expected rudeness. She isn't disappointed, exactly; there are a lot of remarks about how Blair is moving on too fast, how Blair is slumming it with a scholarship kid, how desperate she must be. But there is a small, strong groundswell of interest. They want to know who Dan is. They want to know what's going on. They want to know about Blair, even after everything.

Pleased, she shuts the laptop and starts to get ready.

Blair had considered a new look to go with her new image but at the end of the day she decided to change very little. She tweaks her outfit to look slightly more casual, throwing her hair up into an effortless ponytail that takes a full hour to achieve and trading in heels for flat boots. She doesn't button her shirt all the way up to the collar, letting it lay slightly open to reveal the BW necklace glimmering at her clavicle. She still wears a headband, but she has relegated her ruby heart ring to the back of the jewelry box, putting a statement cocktail ring on that finger instead so everyone will notice its absence.

She studies herself in the mirror and is reminded just slightly of Serena, a name she tries hard not to think of. Angry as she still is with her missing friend, the illusion makes her feel braver. Serena never cared what anyone thought of her. It's just too bad she doesn't care more about Blair.

"You look nice," Dan says, casual and friendly, when he sees her.







That day after school, Blair drags Dan shopping. His uniform is well and good during the week, but considering how smoothly things are going, soon enough Blair will be seen in non-school public with him. She suspects his personal style is tragic.

"Do you know what Isabel said to me during U.S. History?" Blair asks, thrusting another shirt through the dressing room curtain to him.

"I can't afford, like, any of this," Dan says.

"Oh hush." Blair leans against the wall outside, giving a condescending look to the lurking salesgirl before remembering that she's supposed to be a better person and trying for a smile. She's not sure it's successful from the look on the girl's face. "Iz said you were cute. She offered me congratulations."

"Well, if Iz says it…" he mumbles. "This sweater is seventy dollars."

"I know, it's on sale," Blair says with a wrinkle of her nose. "But pay attention, Humphrey. Isabel may be notoriously kind-hearted but she's also too dopey to lie, so she's a fair enough example of public opinion."

Sarcastically: "Great."

Blair sighs loudly, rolling her eyes. "Open up and let me see."

There is a long, stagnant pause. "No?"

"Don't be a baby." Blair whips the curtain aside, startling Dan something fierce, and then steps into the little cubicle, appraising him. "Hm." She takes in the fit of the sweater, a thin dark green cashmere that clings to the shape of his shoulders, and the jeans, which fit closely but not tightly. "Not bad, Humphrey."

"I'm not sure I know you well enough for you to be in here with me," Dan says, frowning.

Blair smirks. "I'll keep my hands to myself. This is good – but not the green, I don't think. The red instead." She observes him shrewdly. "Maybe blue."

"I like red," he offers.

"I suppose I can learn to compromise." Blair smiles at him. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"Allegedly." He tugs at his shirt a little. "Alright, can I get out of this?"

"Don't let me stop you," Blair says playfully. She lets him wallow in discomfort for a moment before excusing herself, calling over her shoulder, "I'll pay. No complaining!"

Blair also has him treat her to dinner at Butter, and by "treat" one is meant to read "escort," because Blair is the one who actually pays. He's uncomfortable and fidgety all through the meal and by the time they're having dessert (a slice of rhubarb and lime tart, with candied pistachios, which Blair orders but only has one bite of) she's long over it.

"What's your problem?" she snaps. "We have to be seen out. We're building mystery."

"I'm just not comfortable in places like this," he says. "And it's not fair that you have to pay for everything."

"You're not my real boyfriend, and I have more money than you," she says flatly. "And this is a mid-priced restaurant. Calm down."

"I think to do this right, if you really want to get out of your comfort zone, then we can't just do things you would normally do. I think you should come to Brooklyn."

"Ew," she says automatically. "Why?"

Dan gives her an exasperated look. "It's where I live."

"Oh. Right." Blair sits back in her seat, considering this, and then she has another bite of dessert, considering it further. "Your sister will be present, presumably. Have you figured out what you're going to tell her about all this?"

He's confused. "I already told her the truth."

Blair's eyes widen. "Seriously, Humphrey?" Doesn't he know anything? Jenny Humphrey may seem like a nice girl but Blair can smell her own; she knows there's viciousness buried underneath those ruffles and polka dots.

Dan raises his eyebrows at her. "My sister is not going to believe that Blair Waldorf is suddenly dating me."

Blair has to concede that, but she does so with as obnoxious a sigh as she can muster. "Alright, fine. But don't tell anyone else. You'll ruin everything before it starts, Humphrey."

He gets a slightly strange, inscrutable look on his face but it's not until they're leaving that she understands it.

"That's another thing," Dan says, hand on her lower back as he steers her outside, leaning down to speak quietly in her ear, "I think you should call me Dan."







Blair arrives in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon in one of her more downmarket ensembles: a pink sweater over a striped blue button down with a white collar and black shorts. She puts her hair up and takes it back down three times, redoes her makeup twice, and then gets very angry at herself for caring about how she'll look at some dumb gallery in Brooklyn.

"Every little bit counts," she reminds herself, and Dorota, who nods supportively.

Dan doesn't come down to meet her, which would be the gentlemanly thing to do, so Blair has to enter the gallery on her own. There are a few artsy types milling around and a man adjusting the position of several pieces on the wall nearest the door. He's the only one to give her a second glance, perhaps because she looks so out of place. The artsy girls might as well be wearing piles of blankets.

"Can I help you, sweetheart?"

Blair narrows her eyes at the man. "Is there a Dan Humphrey here?"

He laughs and introduces himself as Dan's father, revealing he knows her name without her having to say it. "You're the girl my kids won't stop talking about," he says, which makes Blair faintly uncomfortable and more than a little intrigued. "They're through those doors there, in the café."

Blair tries not to appear hesitant as she crosses the gallery floor. The art is really nothing special; it looks like the kind of ridiculous pseudo-avant-garde stuff Serena's mother was always buying. She finally steps into the café, which is relatively packed for such a small, unremarkable sort of place. Someone calls Blair's name and she looks up to see Jenny waving frantically at her, a big beaming smile on her face. Dan is nowhere in sight.

"You're here!" Jenny says as Blair approaches, clutching her purse closely.

"Yes, somehow I managed it," Blair replies dryly.

"Great, because we're swamped," says the girl standing next to Jenny. She's roughly Blair's height, which means a little shorter than Jenny, but there's something about her that seems commanding anyway. She's very pretty, even if it looks like she's dressed in head to toe polyester.

"I don't see how that has anything to do with me," Blair says sweetly. "And you are?"

Jenny and the girl trade glances. "Vanessa," the girl says. "Dan said you were helping us out today."

"Didn't you get a message?" Jenny asks.

Blair looks down at her phone and sure enough there's a text from Dan. Good luck! it reads, along with a highly obnoxious winky face. I will kill you in your sleep, Blair responds, before returning her attention to the girls. "And where is Dan?"

"He had to run some errands for Dad," Jenny says. "He'll be back soon."

Vanessa thrusts out an apron, some hideous dark green tarp-like thing. "What do you know about making cappuccinos?"

"I've summered in Italy since before I could talk," Blair says, which actually means nothing in terms of making cappuccino, but she grabs the apron anyway.

There are few things Blair hates like not knowing how to do something and that afternoon she becomes very familiar with the feeling. Jenny has to show her how to use coffee machines several times but it's not until Vanessa's brusque-if-smirky run-through mid-rush that it starts to sink in. Blair has always learned better by spite.

By the time Dan returns, Blair has spilled a latte all over herself, burned her hand on the panini press, and gotten a dressing-down from a white girl with dreads over a badly made macchiato. She's feeling murderous. Dan pulls her away from the counter so he can properly bandage her burn.

"You threw me to the wolves," she hisses at him.

"Honest day's work is good for you." Dan runs cold water over her hand and then rustles through the first aid kit for some ointment and a bandaid. "It couldn't have been that bad."

"I'm disfigured!" she exclaims, hitting him hard in the arm with her uninjured hand. "And your girlfriend kept making snotty faces at me."

"Vanessa isn't my girlfriend, she's my friend, and she's just…protective. And a little prickly." He glances up with a little smile. "You probably don't know anything about that."

Blair glares at him. "I will hit you again."

Things go smoother with four of them there, and the amount of people begins to decline post-lunch. Dan sends Blair off with a sandwich and coffee for her troubles and she's so tired and bored that she actually consents to looking through one of Jenny's sketchbooks while she eats. Jenny chatters in her ear the whole time but Blair's attention is drawn behind her, to Dan and Vanessa's low conversation as they work.

"Are you for real with this girl, Dan?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I've heard you complain about her and her friends for two years." Interesting. "Not to mention you never liked all that stuff with Jenny. And now you're, what, dating her?"

Even more interesting – he hadn't told her. "It's not that simple," Dan hedges, and then they're interrupted while he sees to a customer. "I've recently sort of…seen a different side to her. I mean, she's not that bad."

"Somehow I find that hard to believe," Vanessa says, but Blair has already tuned them out.

Blair cuts off Jenny mid-ramble. "They're good, Little J," she says absently, tapping a finger on one sketch in particular. "This one, the silver, especially. You should consider submitting to my mother, she does internships over the summer."

Jenny's eyes are the size of plates. "Really? You think I'd have a shot?"

"Anything's possible." She gives Jenny a patronizing smile. "Would you mind taking care of this?" She gestures to the wrapper and paper cup left on the table before sweeping off to bother Dan some more.

He does walk her out at the end of the day. "You know you're welcome to stay for dinner," he says. "Free of charge."

"I've already spent more than enough time in this borough, thanks." Blair sticks her poor, burned hand up in the air to flag down a cab, already dreaming of putting on her Natori pajamas and soaking her sore feet. "I expect compensation for my honest day's work, you know."

"How about my presence at another one of your pretentious restaurants?"

Blair snorts. "You're one to talk about pretentious. But fine. Accepted. And don't expect me to play barista for you again anytime soon."

"We'll see," Dan says vaguely. A cab finally pulls up and he goes to get the door for her. "One more thing. A little bit of a project for you."

Blair sighs. "Oh, goody."

"I want you to make a friend," he says. Off her furrowed brow, he adds, "Not one of those girls who followed you around before. A real friend."

"You make one," Blair retorts petulantly, feeling perhaps slightly too persecuted by this request. "I don't see you surrounded by a crowd of friends at school."

"Fair," he says with a little nod of his head. "But that's what you're helping me with. Just like I'm helping you. And I do have Vanessa – who you're more than welcome to try and make friends with."

Blair balks at that; she'd rather deal with Jenny's fawning. "I'll think about it." Then she pokes him sharply in the chest. "You start thinking about the Ivy mixer. That's our next event. My turf. You better shine, Dan."

"Like a diamond, Waldorf."

He gives her a little nod before she gets in her cab and drives off, grateful for a return to her normal life – but a little proud, too, of her blisters.







There are benefits to having chosen Dan Humphrey for a partner-in-crime, chief among them shared academic zeal. He makes a better study buddy than Dorota and he marks Blair's essays with a vindictiveness that has already brought her up half a letter grade. They've begun to spend their lunch period taking SAT practice tests, competing to see who can finish before the bell.

Blair peppers these sessions with tips for his Ivy mixer usher interview.

"That's great, Blair, but we both know I'm never going to get it," he says, somehow earnest and sardonic all at once. "Everyone knows Nate Archibald's getting the Dartmouth spot. He's a legacy."

"Ugh, Dartmouth," Blair scoffs, waving a hand. "You ought to be setting your sights higher."

"Higher?"

"I'll have you know, scholarship boy, that Yale's tuition is somewhat less costly and they provide better financial aid. Plus Yale basically poached Dartmouth's entire English department, so you'd be getting the same old thing in much prettier packaging. Really, who wants to live in New Hampshire?"

He gives her an odd look, eyes narrowing and head tilting. "Have you been doing college research for me?"

"Remaking you into a less substandard human is the whole point of this exercise, is it not?" she huffs. "I'm simply trying to make you consider the superior school. And I am Yale legacy so I can pull some strings for you."

His eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. "You'd do that?"

Blair pats his arm. "I'm a nice person, remember?"

Dan isn't wrong, exactly: there isn't a shot in hell he'd land the Dartmouth spot, not with the Captain fighting to keep Nate on course. But he needs to land something. What Dan does reflects back on Blair now; Blair Waldorf only associates with the best, so Dan has to be the best of the best.

That night Blair emails her father for the first time in who knows how long. The entire process fills her with dread even though she expects nothing from him other than his usual banal kindness. Together her parents balanced each other, offense and retreat, Eleanor's nitpicky intensity and Harold's genial poise, but apart they fall to extremes. Eleanor is worse than ever. Harold is so far gone as to be unreachable.

Blair hits send with her eyes closed, like a child pretending to be invisible. As though she can remove herself from the situation just by willing it.

He surprises her with a phone call the next day, his voice warm and far away. "I didn't realize you had a new beau, Blair Bear."

"He's just a friend," she says, ruffled, unsure as to why this merited a call over anything else that happened to her during the past year. "Do you think you can put in a good word for him? I know the representative is an old friend of yours."

"Of course, dear, of course," Harold says. "You know I'll do whatever I can."

It's such a brief, meaningless conversation that Blair wonders why they bothered having it at all.







Apparently Blair's father cannot be trusted to come through on even the simplest of tasks, because the Yale spot ends up going to Chuck Bass.

"The solution is simple," Blair proclaims. "You just have to steal it."

Dan gives her one of those looks like she has six heads and all of them are spouting gibberish. It's very annoying.

She begins patiently, because he is still new to this. "I'm still Chair of the Community Outreach Committee –" She'd been voted in before her fall from grace, small miracles. "So I have to give a speech. You will attend as my guest and you will snake that representative right out from under Chuck Bass, which won't be hard because he's barely literate."

Dan's brow furrows. "How can I steal something that's assigned?"

Blair looks at him with genuine pity. "Oh, Dan," she says. "Oh, Dan, you have so much to learn from me."

She spends the remaining days before the mixer drilling Dan on Carey McNally, the Yale rep and her dad's old crew buddy. "I only met him once and he was extremely dull, but he has some kind of bizarre passion for bridges that you could probably work to your advantage."

On the day of, Blair meets Dan outside school, not a single hair out of place; she even put on pearls. This will be her first public speaking engagement since The Fall and she refuses to be anything other than cool, composed, and elegant. Her choice of charity is sufficiently heart wrenching (something with small sad orphans) and she had practiced her regal-yet-concerned expression in the mirror until it was second nature.

Dan, of course, looks less than ideal. One good thing about Nate was that Anne bought all his clothes, so he always looked utterly appropriate.

"Why aren't you wearing the shirt I bought you?" Blair demands, frowning.

"Sometimes you make me feel like a kept man," Dan remarks dryly. He tugs at his collar. "I am wearing it."

Blair grimaces. "I must have been too blinded by that vest to see it. You manage to make good clothes look cheap, Humphrey. That is some ass-backwards kind of talent."

"You're so kind, Blair."

"And, god, did you shave with a lawnmower?" She reaches up to tilt his face side to side, observing at least five nicks and flicking away a tiny forgotten patch of tissue. She sighs, looking up at him. "What am I going to do with you?"

Dan gives her a wry look, equal parts amused and unimpressed, but then he smiles. "I don't know, Waldorf. You tell me."

She realizes her hands are still on his face, jaw warm and already a little prickly. She wonders how often he has to shave. The tilt to his head becomes inquisitive and the grin softens until it is gone entirely, his lips just slightly parted.

Blair pulls her hands back to her sides sharply, clenching her fists until her nails bite into her palms. "Can we get going already?"

Once inside, Blair shoves him in the direction of Chuck and McNally, watching for a moment until she can be sure Dan is insinuating himself into the conversation. He gets McNally to laugh, no mean feat, and Blair smiles thinly, like a proud and slightly manipulative mother. He can be funny in the right way when he wants to be.

Blair networks after that, making small talk with adults who don't know about her scandal or otherwise find themselves above such idle teenage gossip. She checks in with Dan from time to time, just a quick glance through the crowd, and scolds him silently when she catches him making eyes at that author J.L. Hall one too many times. Fuck Dartmouth, she thinks, perhaps too venomously.

As if on cue, Nate appears at her shoulder. "So that's the guy," he says.

The back of Blair's neck tingles like someone's touched her there, light and ghostly. "Dan," she supplies. "Cute, isn't he?"

"How would I know?" Nate asks. "Looks like he's doing pretty good with Chuck's rep."

"Mm." Blair refuses to so much as glance at Nate. "He's gifted academically. He's second in your class, you know – what are you, again? Tenth?"

"C'mon, Blair," Nate huffs.

She gives in and looks over at Nate, but it's only to shoot him the most beatific of smiles. "He got into St. Jude's on merit instead of family." It's a facetious brag that she'd come up with in the shower recently but as soon as it leaves her lips, it feels as good as true. "Can you imagine such a thing?"

She doesn't wait for Nate's reply before stalking off. She has people to impress.







Blair has not forgotten Dan's little friendship edict. The trouble is, as always, that she wants for suitable options; the girls were never really friends so much as underlings, a prep school army wielding yogurt bombs. Jenny Humphrey still wants so much from Blair, the light of it so bright in her eyes that Blair can barely quash the instinct to stamp it out. Serena is, for all intents and purposes, long gone. Vanessa is –

Vanessa is admittedly stimulating for someone like Blair, who enjoys a fight, but she's not sure that could be called friendship.

The other stragglers of the year – girls not quite wealthy or stylish enough to reach the upper echelons, or the girls who honestly don't care to try – have always been so far below Blair's notice that she can't imagine turning her attention to them now.

Dan isn't a friend so much as a business associate.

It's really a very unfair assignment.

Blair is sitting on her own one morning – Dan had an early meeting with the guidance counselor over college-related something or other – going over her pro and con lists of potential girls to make into friends when she hears a muffled sob somewhere behind her. She automatically freezes. It happens again, the very distinct sound of someone crying right behind Blair in the almost-empty courtyard. Do-gooder Dan would tell her to inquire as to whether this person, whoever it is, is okay. Blair wants to slide to the ground and creep away as fast as she possibly can.

Instead, after another moment's deliberating, Blair takes a deep breath and turns around. "Are you –" She stops, surprised, because it's Iz sitting there practically hidden in a corner, face half-buried in a pile of Kleenex. "Iz?"

Iz appears comically caught, her eyes going so wide Blair can see all the way around the iris. "Blair. I didn't know that was you."

Blair suppresses a frown; she's practically a shadow these days. "Are you alright?"

At that, Iz bursts into a fresh round of tears. Blair genuinely has no idea what to do with that; if it were her crying, she certainly wouldn't want to be bothered by anyone. That's why she used to sit in the farthest corner of the library to do it. But someone had bothered her, even there.

So Blair gets up tentatively and moves over to sit beside Iz. After some coaxing, the entire story comes out: Iz's parents have been going through a rough divorce, her mother planning her remarriage before the ink is even dry on the papers, and they're in the middle of a vicious custody battle to determine the fate of Iz and her two little sisters. Blair listens and listens and has no idea what to say.

"At least no one moved to France with their gay lover?" she tries. Iz looks at her, startled, and then she laughs, which startles Blair in turn. She smiles. "You know, it's weird, but if you run cold water on your wrists after you've been crying, it helps? And sort of pat it under your eyes – no splashing. It takes the swelling down a bit and it doesn't disrupt your makeup as much. All you need to do is reapply concealer and no one would ever know." Blair pauses. "But don't powder. Because of the tissues, it'll cling to all the dry patches on your nose and look ridiculous."

Iz stares at her for a moment with a strangely soft, kind look that Blair is not certain she's ever seen from Iz directly before. "Thank you, Blair."

Blair bristles. "I didn't do anything."

"Venting helped," Iz admits. She doesn't look bad at all, really, for having just been crying. Iz was always stupid pretty and now she honestly just looks flushed and lovely, if a little red around the eyes. "Plus it's not like you owe it to me, after everything."

Uncomfortable, Blair shrugs. "You were crying."

Iz bites her lip. "Um. There's this – it's a party, called Kiss on the Lips? If you wanted, um…" Iz dives into her purse and emerges a moment later with a slightly crumpled invite that reads Isabel Coates and Guest. "I could put your name on the list. In case."

Blair blinks at her. "What about Penelope?"

Iz smiles. "What about her?"







Blair picks Dan up from his subway stop in a cab and ignores his glaring the entire way to the club, making idle chatter as she looks out the window. "Who throws a party in Queens, honestly," she says, smoothing her skirt for the hundredth time. "Penelope is so hopeless."

"Hmph," says Dan.

"Oh, come on," Blair says. "How much time do I spend in Brooklyn, hm? You can suck it up for one night. I even did what you wanted! I was nice to Iz and she extended an invitation as a show of friendship."

He sighs a little, looking at her with pathetic puppy dog eyes. "I know," he says. "You're right."

Blair smiles smugly. She does love to hear those words.

Dan tugs at his tie, loosening it enough to bare his throat. It doesn't look half bad. "I guess I'm just nervous."

"Don't worry." Blair reaches over to pat his knee. "I won't, say, leave you alone with two girls you barely know to work a panini press with a grudge."

Dan just grins at her.

The party is, annoyingly, beautiful. As soon as they step through the doors, Blair understands why Penelope would go with a venue in Long Island City; the space is large and industrial with big, gorgeous windows and a second level that looks down onto the packed dance floor. There are twinkling lights everywhere, intimate dark corners, tables heaped with booze and appetizers. It doesn't look unlike a party Blair would throw. She swallows hard, feeling unsettled and unseated.

Dan takes her hand and squeezes it. "Bourgeois as hell," he says in her ear, voice such a parody of pretentiousness that Blair genuinely can't help laughing.

Blair knows the appropriate thing to do is make the rounds, so she drags Dan over to the lush couch where Penelope is holding court with the rest of the girls. "Blair," Penelope says. "I'm touched you could make it."

"Gee, Pen, I'm touched you'd invite me," Blair says, and hears Dan snicker beside her.

Penelope's gaze shifts over to him briefly. "Is this your date?" She makes a show of looking past Blair and Dan, searching the crowd. "Where's the other one?"

"Other one?" Blair repeats, knowing she's setting herself up for a barb but unable, in the moment, to circumvent it.

"Don't you have a second one?" Penelope wonders innocently. "I know you really like to have two guys at once."

All of the girls titter except for Iz, who shoots Blair an apologetic look.

Dan leans forward a little with a quizzical look on his face. "What was your name again?" he asks, and it's such a first grade attempt at an insult that Blair could pat him on the head. Penelope looks annoyed, however, and it's worth it to see her have to introduce herself begrudgingly at her own party.

"Where are you from?" Hazel asks Dan. "Like, Staten Island?"

"Aren't you," Kati's voice lowers, "on scholarship?"

"I heard you like totally stole the Yale rep from Chuck Bass," Iz says, with a smile. Blair isn't sure she ever noticed that Iz was nice; she always thought Iz was a little dim, honestly.

"Not the only thing he stole from Chuck Bass," Penelope adds in a stage whisper.

"I'm from Brooklyn," Dan says evenly, "And I'm pretty sure you can't steal a person."

Penelope arches an eyebrow slightly. "You should probably ask the other guy."

"Penelope, you seem very concerned with my love life." Blair slips her arm through Dan's, because he's starting to get that challenging look on his face, like he might start something. "Although I suppose it's easy to be jealous when you're in the middle of a drought yourself."

She expects Penelope to look irritated, but instead she smiles. "Enjoy the party, Blair," she says, then turns away to whisper to Hazel.

Both disconcerted and momentarily bested, Blair tugs Dan away towards the bar. She needs a major drink. Scratch that – she needs at least three.

She shoos Dan away at a certain point (they can't spend the entire evening clinging to each other like limpets, how tragic) and she finds a perch on the second tier, observing everyone below. She sees Chuck in the far corner with some poor freshman and sends in a quick tip to Gossip Girl that Chuck has gonorrhea, because it might as well be true. As far as Blair's concerned, it counts as public service. She waits until the girl checks her beeping phone, makes a face, and pulls away before turning her own attention elsewhere.

She finds Dan in the middle of a crowd of lacrosse boys. With a quick intake of breath she realizes Nate is standing beside him. Dan looks at ease, hands in his pockets, posture relaxed, and whatever he says makes the whole group of cretins laugh. Nate slaps Dan on the back companionably, though as far as Blair knows this is the first time they've spoken.

Loner, my ass, Blair thinks. He persecutes himself on purpose.

"I assume this is your work." A hand thrusts a phone in front of Blair – a hand with several rings on it and emerging from a purple shirt-cuff. Chuck.

"It's probably the work of one of your call girls," Blair says airily, sipping her fourth champagne. "You should do better STD screening. Or any at all, really."

"I don't have gonorrhea," Chuck drawls.

Brightly, Blair says, "Syphilis, then?" She pushes away from the railing, starting to thread through the crowd away from him, but Chuck follows.

"Saw your new boy," he says. "I knew you liked slumming it, but this is a new low."

"Yes – funny, handsome, smart, what am I thinking?" Every time Blair ticks off Dan's better qualities they start to sound less and less facetious. Why does everyone think he's such a disaster? Blair included, really; there was the bad clothes, the bad hair, the unapproachable manner, but all of that was easily fixed. Now he's entertaining the golden boys of St. Jude's with barely a hitch. "Everyone's very interested in Dan all of a sudden. I suppose it's because he's very interesting."

"Or because you're very transparent," Chuck counters, amused. "He's a last resort and everyone knows it. You'll do anything to salvage your reputation. It's pathetic."

"No, I think that's you, actually." Blair thrusts her empty flute at him and stalks off, her skin crawling and spirit sinking for no logical reason – it's just what Chuck does to her. He makes her feel like crap.

And of course, because she's feeling pathetic, Blair runs smack into Penelope again.

"Enjoying yourself?" Penelope looks like the cat that ate the canary, but even despite the smugness Blair can't deny she looks good. She's in a tight-fitting black dress with rhinestones dotting the neckline, delicate diamond bracelets glittering on each wrist, and a sparkling headband nestled in her dark hair. Blair had recently renounced headbands; it was time.

"What a lovely hostess," Blair says sarcastically. "Are you this concerned about every guest or am I special?"

Penelope smiles with all her teeth like the Cheshire cat and doesn't look away from Blair as she calls, "Sweetie, did you get my drink?"

"Yeah, I –" Nate falters as he steps up next to Penelope, holding a beer in one hand and a bright pink cocktail in the other. "Oh, hey, Blair."

Blair feels very certain that she is experiencing hysterical blindness. There is no way – no way– that after everything, after the cavalcade of humiliation that has been Blair's life for the past year, Penelope Shafai has snagged Nate. But there Penelope is, taking the drink and leaning up to kiss Nate's cheek. At least he has the courtesy to look uncomfortable.

Nate didn't want Blair. He made that abundantly clear. Yet he'd replaced her with essentially her own evil twin; Penelope has so clearly been remade in Blair's image that she could probably sue for use of likeness.

Blair is still frozen to the spot when she feels a hand on her waist and hears Dan's voice say, "Hey, Waldorf, I was looking all over for you." She doesn't even think to fake a smile as she turns because she's still so appalled, and then she doesn't get a chance to because Dan kisses her.

Dan's mouth. On her mouth. It isn't a peck, either. His body is very close, that hand on her waist tucking her against him as he leans into her, Blair tilting back. It's a good kiss. It's a kiss like a movie, a kiss with a soundtrack; Blair doesn't believe for one second Dan's as inexperienced as he implies if he can kiss like this.

His smile when they pull apart is equal amounts smug and genuine. He pretends to notice Nate and Penelope a half-second later, doing an admirable act of boyish embarrassment. "Oh, sorry," he says. "I didn't realize you were there." He peers at Penelope. "What was your name again?"

Blair is still laughing when they leave not long after, Dan suppressing a smile as he darts ahead to hail a cab. She jabs him sharply in the chest. "You could be good at this if you wanted to be," she says, thinking of Penelope, the kiss, the way he was with the other boys.

"Yeah, well," Dan says. "Same to you." He gives her a sidelong glance. "Sorry if the kiss was a boundary-crossing thing. I just saw you there and acted on instinct."

"Some instinct," Blair muses.

"So." He bites his lip, all amused. "How was it?"

"Oh, shut up," she huffs. "Don't look so pleased with yourself."

"I think I felt you swoon in my arms a little."

"You're going to feel me puke on your shoes in a minute."

Dan's grin only widens as he hands her into the cab and for the briefest flicker of a moment, Blair remembers what that mouth felt like pressed against her own.

PART TWO

tell me something true
dan/blair. jenny, vanessa, iz, penelope, nate.
s1 au. 14k words. Selfie/Drive Me Crazy-inspired.


PART ONE



"What I don't understand," Dan says, as he lets Blair direct him around her living room, all the furniture pushed close to the walls, "is how many excuses you people find for a party."

"Cotillion isn't merely a party," Blair says, something of a reprimand in it. They pass each other, clasp hands, move on to other, invisible partners. Dan is hopeless at choreography.

"That's right. It's an antiquated –"

"– charming –"

"– sexist –"

"You're a boy, what do you know –"

"Where you spend all this money to parade girls around for attention –"

"Cotillion teaches grace and poise, which every girl should –"

"Oh, you just want to wear a big dress and tiara."

Blair makes sure to step on his feet a few times. "You know, you could use some grace and poise yourself."

Dan raises his eyebrows. "I am not the one stepping on their dance partner."

"I'm making a point," Blair says. "Cotillion will be the ultimate test for us and cotillion will be the ultimate triumph if we play our cards right." She starts to get swept up in the idea. "For me, it's a chance to rise above my detractors – a phoenix from the ashes, better than before. And for you it'll be a transformation. Ultimate outsider to ultimate insider. It all hinges on cotillion."

Dan always looks at her like she's crazy, but there's increasing affection in it lately. "Say cotillion one more time."

Blair makes a face at him. "Cotillion."

Catching Dan up on the choreography has made Blair unexpectedly sad, albeit in an abstract and untouchable way. He's terrible, there's no denying it – his timing is way off and he has no interest in applying himself – and that just makes her think of how not-terrible Nate had been. She and Nate had practiced together since they were children, enrolled in baby ballroom by their mothers. He was a natural, and Blair always felt terribly romantic in his arms, allowing him to dutifully spin her.

Since her trouble started, she's only been going to the bare minimum of practices. Just enough to keep her spot, which she wouldn't dream of giving up, and even that had been awful, an instructor standing in for the partner she didn't have. "You'll need someone soon," they'd told her, as if Blair hadn't known.

Her thoughts must show on her face, because Dan gives her shoulder a shake, completely breaking form. "C'mon. Remind me why this is good for me, again."

She's been working in little boyfriend tips here and there, fulfilling her end of the bargain to turn him into the perfect partner. "Do you know how much girls love a good dancer?"

"Shockingly, this is something I have learned from the television." Dan forgets which direction he's supposed to go in and does a funny little turn as he tries to get back on path. The music tinkles along merrily in the background. "Anyway, I'm not so hopeless – I did pretty well the other night, didn't I?"

Blair can feel herself go scarlet, which is absurd, and she hopes her Chanel Vitalumière is doing a good job of hiding it. "I mean, if you want to call that a kiss –"

"Oh, no, not that." His hand lands on her waist in the exact same spot, and they're very close for a moment before the dance has them parting. "Didn't I tell you? I sort of met a girl."

She blinks and misses a step. "You were busy that night, weren't you?"

Dan ducks his head. Blair is starting to wonder at his shyness. "It looks like your good work is starting to pay off after all."

"Hm." Blair turns away from him and crosses to shut off the music. That's more than enough practice for today. "What's her name?"

Dan tells her (it's no one Blair knows, a girl who transferred to Constance from Spence last year) as he shifts the furniture back into place. "I mean, we just talked school stuff." He gives Blair a half-smile. "I have a girlfriend, remember?"

Having a real girlfriend doesn't mean much to most boys, so Blair can't imagine a fake one means much more. "I'm your first, aren't I? Real or fake?"

For some reason he goes a little pink, adjusting the position of an end table, and gives a quick nod.

"You'll have to bide your time, of course – keep her interested without seeming like a creep who's stepping out, and then like you aren't moving on too fast after our breakup."

He rubs the back of his neck. "Jeez, Blair."

"Come here." He looks wary, which makes her smile. "I'm not going to eat you. I'm your friend. I'm helping." Dan makes his way over to where she's leaning against the sideboard, waiting for him. "You should touch her. Nothing over the top. Nothing obscene. Just –" Blair trails her fingertips down his arm to his wrist. "Girls like to be touched."

"I touch you all the time," Dan says, and his arm snakes around her waist, tugging her close.

"I noticed." Blair bites her lip, looking up at him, and then evades his grasp, slipping away. "Fast learner."

"Blair."

She turns to face him, eyebrow arching.

"I'm proud of you," he says, which is not what she expected. "Talking to Isabel again, putting in time at the gallery. I even heard, uh, some nice things you said about me to, um, Nate. Which was probably bullshit, but…" He shakes his head a little and shrugs. "I maybe don't regret this deal we made."

Blair smiles genuinely, and her little bit of cat and mouse play begins to feel silly, miscalculated.

"Even school," Dan continues. "I applied for this summer thing, and I think I might get it. I never would've even tried for it without you hassling me about Yale, so – you know, thank you. You've helped me. And I want you to know that."

A strange sensation is rising in Blair's chest, that feeling you get between tripping and hitting the ground. It would be a staggering coincidence for Dan to be talking about this – the program she had spent years thinking about, months working on an application for, carefully crafting essays and curating letters of recommendation. The program that got so many applicants from Upper East Side prep schools that they only ever took one person from the combined student body of Constance and St. Jude's.

It would just be too much of a coincidence.

But Dan had helped her with those essays.

"That summer thing," she says, smile suddenly feeling fixed. "What's it called?"

"You know it," he says, then tells her, and Blair's stomach drops like hitting the ground.







The girl who transferred from Spence to Constance is named Nelly Yuki and the only reason Blair hasn't gotten the lowdown on her before now is because one look told her Nelly Yuki was too tragic to ever really be competition. If Nelly is the kind of girl Dan likes, then it's no wonder both of them are alone, too busy slinking around corners with their noses in books to notice any other human life forms.

Nelly hasn't changed since that first time Blair and the girls went around to scope out the newbie: big unfashionable glasses, dull skin, flat hair, and a clothing color palette straight out of some fictional dystopian future world. Like Blair said: tragic. She's not even sure how Nelly ended up at Kiss on the Lips.

Blair drops all of her books onto the table next to Nelly with a huffy put-upon sigh, receiving a pointed look from the librarian for being too noisy. It's Blair's free period, the one she usually spends in the coffee shop around the corner, by herself. But today she's spending it in the library.

Nelly looks up, not expecting the interruption.

"SATs," Blair says with that over-the-top put-upon-ness anyone in their class would sympathize with. "Getting in as much prep as I can."

"Uh-huh." Nelly's gaze travels from Blair to the pile and back. "Look, I don't know what you heard but I was only tutoring the other girls because that ringleader Penelope basically blackmailed me into it, I have no interest in –"

"Whoa, whoa, Nelly Yuki, calm down." Blair blinks at her in feigned innocence, lashes fluttering. "I don't need tutoring. I just sat down here because, well, you seemed nice." Nelly doesn't seem to be buying that, so Blair adds, "I heard you met my boyfriend. I mean, he said you were nice. He liked you."

Great job, Blair, she thinks with an internal eye roll. It was the word boyfriend that had her flustered, sounding weird in her voice, out of her mouth. For all she's heard it from others, she never thinks of Dan as her boyfriend, or even calls him that herself. Because he isn't her boyfriend, not really.

Nelly gives Blair a curious, assessing look. "Oh. Okay."

"No one wants to sit alone, even to study," Blair goes on to say, voice still odd and too chipper. She concentrates on opening one of her prep books and then just stares at the text, her hands laying on the page, unblemished skin and ice-pink nails. She used to be good at this sort of thing. She could psychologically crush a girl while prying out the information she wanted all without leaving a mark. Now that she's nice she can't even manage to be normal for thirty seconds.

Nelly Yuki puts a hand on Blair's arm. Last year, a girl like Nelly Yuki wouldn't even dare to brush Blair's sleeve. "I don't know what you think happened, exactly," Nelly says cautiously. "But we just talked a little."

"I don't know what you're implying." Blair's voice is too cold where it was too pleasant before.

"Nothing," Nelly says, jerking her hand back to her side. "I'm not implying anything."

After that Blair is too embarrassed to stay or go, so she and Nelly focus on their respective tasks until the bell rings and Blair runs off like she's on fire.

"I'm such an idiot," she complains to Iz after school, face buried in one of the overly frilly pillows that decorate Iz's bed. They never used to go to anyone's house except Blair's, but times have changed.

When Blair emerges from the pile of pillows, Iz looks sympathetic. "That is…pretty bad," she says, but she's only able to keep a straight face for a second before dissolving into giggles. "In front of Nelly Yuki. God, Blair, that's like…a new level of embarrassing yourself."

Blair thwacks her with a pillow, frowning. "Yes, thank you, Isabel, I was not aware."

"It's just super absurd. Like, Dan is so into you, I don't know why you'd even worry."

Blair harrumphs at that. She can't very well tell Iz the truth, but reminding herself of it highlights how ridiculous it is that she'd overreact about Dan and Nelly Yuki. What does she care if he makes eyes at some loser in last year's specs?

Finally, when the silence has stretched a beat too long, Blair says, "You're right. Plus it's not like I even care." She frowns, slumping into the bed. "He's just some nobody from Brooklyn. Of course his first real party would go to his head."

Iz arches an eyebrow and makes her hands into little claws. "Raaawr," she says. "Harsh."

Blair rolls her eyes, but it's become increasingly impossible to ignore the way insecurity has buried its way under her skin. She tries to remain rational. She doesn't care if Dan likes someone. It doesn't mean anything. He won't get into Ivy Scholars this summer. He won't because he can't, because Blair needs that spot. She's worked too hard for that spot. Dan will not steal it from her. "What? It's true."

"Nothing, I just, you know…" Iz shrugs. "I thought you guys seemed pretty happy."

"Happy?" Blair repeats.

"Yeah, like –" Iz flips her laptop so it's facing Blair and scrolls through Blair's Gossip Girl tag. Practically everything on it features Dan – their heads bent together over a textbook, Dan standing impatiently next to Blair's locker as she digs for something, Blair fussing with the knot of his tie. "You're always together at school and – okay, don't get mad or anything, but you're a lot less uptight lately. Like, you're way more relaxed."

Blair's frown only deepens. She doesn't need someone like Dan Humphrey to make her less uptight. "I'm just using him." It's true in a way Iz doesn't realize. "He's not terrible looking and he's a passable kisser." She shuts the laptop with a snap. "High school boyfriends are pointless. If the last year taught me anything, it's that."

Iz snorts. "Yeah, that was some kiss alright," she teases. "He's hot, even if he is on scholarship."

Saying those words, hearing them echoed back to her, makes the tension seep out of Blair's back. He's nothing to her, ultimately. He isn't going to steal anything from her.







Saturday afternoon once again finds Blair behind the counter at the Bedford Avenue Gallery. She's been coming by every other weekend to dole out drinks and sandwiches. By now she's tamed the finicky panini press, can make a macchiato in her sleep. She's even gotten over her qualms about touching the grimy handle of the dustpan, or wiping down the counters with a previously used sponge. She is truly – on the surface, at least – One Of Them. She had even shocked Eleanor once at breakfast with two perfect lattes.

Today involves none of her blue collar skills, however. Rain is coming down in sheets outside so the gallery isn't getting much traffic. Nevertheless the entire team is on hand: Vanessa fiddling obsessively with the music selection, Jenny sketching at an empty table, Blair deploring the state of her manicure, and Dan out in the other room helping his father dismantle the latest exhibit.

"Oh, leave this one," Blair says to Vanessa. "I love this song."

Vanessa looks up from the iPod and raises an eyebrow. "You love this song?"

"Hidden depths," Blair remarks dryly. One of her nails is snagged. "I can't imagine you'd have a nail file?"

She doesn't, but Jenny does, so Blair hops off her stool and trots over. As she works her nail over, she can't help looking down at Jenny's drawing. "Have I seen this before?"

Jenny starts, eyes going wide, and says, "Yeah, I'm surprised you remember. You saw the rough draft, this is sort of updated." She tilts it up for Blair to see better.

Blair has always loved fashion drawings: the sweeping, slim figures in amorphous gowns, the splashes of color. Jenny's are annoyingly adorable, much like the girl herself; this one features a woman with a big blonde bouffant and comically overdrawn eyelashes in a silver gown with a gigantic bow at one shoulder. Jenny has painted in the slightest floral motif over the fabric. Blair looks at the whole thing put together and has the immediate pulse of want she's gotten with a million dresses over the years, desirous of voluminous skirts and luxurious textures, beautiful things that feel as though they should rightfully belong to her.

"How much would it cost to make?" she wonders, fingertips tracing over the train.

"Make?" Jenny repeats. "Um. I haven't worked it out exactly. Why?"

Blair's cotillion dress is a Waldorf Designs original, a slate blue number with gold detailing that Blair had loved, once. Instead of answering Jenny, she asks, "How long would it take to put together?"

The rest of the rainy day is taken up with measurements and planning, Jenny's excitement so catching that Blair and even Vanessa get swept up in it. Jenny mumbles about brocade while she wraps Blair's various parts in a measuring tape, and Blair takes over the music much to Vanessa's protest, putting on the girliest pop she can find. Vanessa lectures them all on the evils of cotillion but it's with a smile on her face that Blair has never actually seen.

That's how Dan finds them hours later, his skin dusty and hands scraped up, looking every bit the worker, utterly exhausted. But when he sees the three of them he smiles, tentative and curious. "Okay," he says, "What did you do to Vanessa? Because the real Vanessa would never stand for –" He pauses, listening. "Is this Taylor Swift?"

"It's called having fun, Dan," Jenny says. "Maybe you've heard of it? Oh, wait –" She makes a face at him, which Dan mirrors right back at her.

"I have fun," he says.

"Sort of," Blair remarks. "If one's idea of fun is doing speed rounds on practice tests."

"That was your idea, nerd," he reminds her, tugging on her ponytail as he passes by, and Blair smiles at him, because sometimes she can't quite help it.

Something like guilt prickles deep in her chest, but Blair ignores it. She's good at that.







By the time cotillion rolls around a month later, Blair thinks she might have permanent scarring from all the times Jenny stabbed her with a needle by accident ("By accident," Vanessa said once, sardonic, her eyebrow arching). But it's worth it when she puts the dress on for the final time in Jenny's room and looks in the mirror: the fabric is heavy, stiff and formal, but the dress is fitted to her exactly and the silver brings a shine to her skin, sets off the dark brown of her hair. It's perfect, and Blair thinks even her mother would be shocked to agree. It looks like the old her, the girl she thought was gone.

"Wow," Dan says.

Both Blair and Jenny swivel towards the door, startled, and Dan must read something on their faces because he puts his hand up in front of his, averting his eyes.

"Is this like a wedding thing?" he says. "Am I not supposed to see?"

Blair rolls her eyes, snorting a laugh. "You can look, Dan."

He gives her a wry smile as he drops his hand. "Ready to go?"

Dan doesn't look half bad himself – or he wouldn't if he didn't look like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. The tux is a little flashy for Dan, who usually considers a vest over a flannel shirt to be the height of formal dress, a charcoal suit with silver tie that complements her. He looks good. Not that Blair would ever dream of telling him that.

They're at the door to the hall when Dan stops her, hand on her wrist just above the silver glove. Blair is itchy with enthusiasm, can't wait to get in there and show off, so it's with impatience that she turns to him. "What?"

"Just – it's dumb, but –" He delves into his pocket and then holds his hand up to her, a slightly tangled necklace dropping from his fingers to dangle in front of her eyes. It's nothing special. From a somewhat tarnished silver chain hangs a geometric, vaguely art deco snowflake, studded with dark stones.

"Is this for me?" Blair asks, a sneer already in her voice. "Where'd you get it, the sale pile at a thrift store?"

Abashed, Dan says, "It's my mom's."

Blair's stomach does a funny little flip-flop. "Well, then." She turns, her back to him, and waits. "Go ahead."

The little snowflake falls against her chest and when Blair looks down at it, she doesn't mind how it looks there.

They find their place in line, a few behind Iz and her date, one of those indistinguishable North twins; Blair sees Kati has the other one. The line runs alphabetical all the way down to Waldorf, which Blair always liked, because it meant she had the last word. But right now she feels a slight twinge that there's no van der Woodsen right there with her, like they'd always planned.

Then she notices Dan sort of watching her out of the corner of his eye, like he's trying to hide it, and Blair laughs, sadness cracking. "Just admit it," she teases him. "You worship me. It's okay."

Dan laughs soundlessly, cheeks pinking as he looks away. "Nope, no way," he says. "I have…grown accustomed to your face."

"I don't think you were looking at my face," Blair says pleasantly. She leans into his shoulder a little and Dan responds with an arm around her waist, a loose hold. He's been touching her a lot more since they had that talk. She thinks Dan is fantastic at faking it but almost at the same time thinks he might kiss her; she doesn't know which is true. Dan is either really good at acting, or he's awful at it.

Blair is slightly nervous that something might happen when she steps up to be announced – some Carrie at the prom kind of thing, orchestrated by Penelope, that will leave Blair humiliated and murderous. But nothing happens except polite applause, Dan taking her hand, Blair dipping into an accidental happy curtsy.

That seems like the most dangerous part of the evening finished; all there is afterwards is picking at a fixed menu meal and taking a few turns around the dance floor. Dan doesn't embarrass her there. At least when he messes up, he's capable of covering it, and Blair's too flush on victory to mind a few slips. Iz gives her encouraging smiles whenever their eyes meet, and even the rest of the girls seem less cold-shouldered. Kati is primed to break now that Iz has been won over, and Hazel never had much of a mind of her own to start with. Plus there's Jenny Humphrey milling through the crowd in Blair's cast off cotillion gown, the blue and gold very pretty against her blonde hair. It doesn't feel entirely hopeless.

"You look nice."

Blair is sitting at her table chatting to Iz, Dan on her other side distracted by some argument with Kati's date about some movie Blair's never heard of. Blair looks up to see who had addressed her, and she's shocked to see that it's Nate.

Iz gives a curious lift of the eyebrows and dutifully busies herself with her water glass.

"Thank you," Blair says. "You too." Her eyes sweep over him, all cream and pale silver. "I'd almost forgotten how handsome you are, Archibald."

He tips his head towards the dance floor. "Old times' sake?"

Blair forgets to say anything to Dan. She just goes.

She and Nate fall into old steps with the casual precision of habit but it feels like just that – a habit, brushing her hair or picking out shoes for the day. Her stomach doesn't flutter, her hands don't shake. Nate doesn't make any mistakes, so she has no reason to poke fun or laugh at him. It all feels very…obligatory.

"I'm glad you're doing okay," Nate says. Blair hates when people say things like that, as though she was dying or something, and Nate hastily continues, "I just mean…even though things ended really messed up between us, I'm happy you're…you know, happy. You should be."

Blair is surprised, not least because such maturity is generally beyond her own grasp or understanding, so it certainly seems beyond Nate's. But he always had a good heart, so maybe she shouldn't be too taken aback. She kisses him on the cheek. "Thanks, Nate."

By the time they return to the table, Penelope is hovering, looking none too pleased. She's in a lacy, gilded lilac dress that even Blair has to admit looks incredible on her. Penelope learned from the best, finally combining sartorial expertise and meanness into one unified whole. "Hey, B," Penelope says. "I was just catching up with your date."

"It was scintillating," Dan says dryly.

Blair smirks. "I'm glad. I hope you didn't mind me absconding with yours."

Nate, ever the well-trained boyfriend, has sidled around so he's standing just behind Penelope instead of Blair.

"Of course not," Penelope says. "I really came over to congratulate you."

This raises Blair's suspicions. Even though she's already decided to count the night as a success, she can't imagine Penelope giving in so quickly. "Oh?"

"On the Ivy Scholars spot," Penelope says, as though it's obvious. Blair's spine goes straight as a steel pole.

Dan's brow furrows. "I didn't know they'd already chosen someone."

"Oh, well, I shouldn't really say –" Penelope leans in conspiratorially. "I sort of have the inside scoop. My mother's on the board."

Blair internally runs through every name on the list. "There's no Shafai on the board."

"After the divorce, she went back to her maiden name." Penelope watches Blair closely. "Benedetti." When Blair doesn't say anything, she goes on, "It's funny, you know, because she mentioned the spot from our school was down to a few kids but they'd just had to discount someone because they got this reference call saying all sorts of things about the guy, like he had some cheating scandal and he even might be planning to pay someone to take his SATs –"

"Shut up, Penelope," Blair says tightly. Dan gives her a confused look.

"So of course I had to ask who it was," Penelope continues, undeterred, "And I was shocked–" Her eyes are very wide, to convey said shock. "– to hear it was your Dave. Sorry – Dan. Mom was really appalled, you know how she feels about cheating – just as Dad. Now. Who do you think could have possibly spread all those lies about Dan just to take him out of the running?"

"Pen," Nate sighs tiredly, but the intervention is much too late, damage already done.

Dan, however, is still looking at Blair, with a suspicious tinge encroaching on the doubt in his expression.

Blair tries to cut it off before it spreads any further. "Penelope's always been very jealous." She ignores Penelope's scoff. "She's just trying to ruin –"

"Why do you care, anyway?" Penelope interrupts. "You're just using him, aren't you? That's what you said to Iz, anyway. How did she phrase it – you said, 'he's just some nobody from Brooklyn.' Right?"

But Dan is still looking at Blair, has not wavered in waiting for her to denounce this or confirm it. "Blair?"

Blair presses her lips together, stalling. "You don't understand," she starts, but that is apparently enough, because Dan gets to his feet.

"I should've known better," he says. It makes anger rise hot in Blair's chest, her cheeks going red with it.

"You're so judgmental," she snaps. "If you would just take a minute to understand–"

"All I've done is try to understand you. Help you. But I guess it was all for nothing, because you're still pulling the same old stunts."

Everyone in the vicinity is watching them with a mixture of rapt enjoyment and discomfort. There's a word for that, enjoying someone else's pain. Eyes zip back and forth between Dan and Blair like following the ball at a tennis match.

"Just because you spent your entire life being too anti-social to understand how the real world works –"

"I should've known there was a reason everyone hated you, joke's on me for thinking you were different –"

"It's not like you could afford the program anyway," Blair snits. "You just went after it because it was mine."

Dan stares at her, frowning. "You're a real bitch," he says. It's something Blair's been called a lot in her life but somehow, coming out of his mouth at this moment, it's the worst thing anyone's ever said to her. "Like I said – I should've known better."

She feels herself go hard and protective and cruel. "You think you're so much better than me just because you serve four dollar lattes to out of town transplants. You think you're so superior."

"I don't, actually," Dan says, shaking his head. "I just stupidly thought this fake friendship was real."

Then he's gone, stalking off across the polished floor, leaving Blair standing there in her stupid custom-made gown feeling like a fool. "I hope you're happy," she says to Penelope, but the worst part is that she probably is.







After that Blair decides she doesn't care about Dan, not even a little bit. She's actually better off without him around.

There are downsides, of course. She can't sit in the library during lunch anymore, and she can't sit in the courtyard either because she has no interest in being subjected to Penelope's smug face or Iz's cringing apologies. They'd had a fight too, after cotillion.

"I can't believe you told her what I said about Dan," Blair hissed. "I can never trust anyone. All of you, running behind everyone's backs to gossip, to reveal every single little tidbit you hear."

"It's not like that," Iz protested. "I didn't know it was a secret! You said it like – like it was no big deal, I just mentioned it to her, I wasn't trying to tattle."

So she hasn't been speaking to Iz either. Which doesn't matter because Blair doesn't care. She can be strong and solitary until she goes away to college and makes all new friends. But sometimes she wonders what exactly she did to Penelope to deserve such treatment – and then a guilty little voice pipes up in the back of her head: what didn't she do?

Lunch finds Blair instead in the disused art rooms, where she begged a key off a teacher who felt sorry for her. She sits on the dusty desk (towel laid down between her and its surface, of course) and picks irritably at her yogurt-with-granola, heels knocking against wooden desk legs. That's where Jenny finds her, slipping silently onto the desk beside her.

"I come here sometimes too," Jenny says. "It's nice to have a quiet place to draw."

"I don't draw," Blair says, and her voice comes out rough, choked, where she had meant to sound cold.

"I figured." Jenny glances at Blair, then fishes a tinfoil-wrapped sandwich out of her lunch bag and offers Blair half. It's whole wheat, chicken cutlet, mustard. Nothing Blair would ever eat. She accepts half and takes a bite. "For the record, I keep telling him he's being stupid."

Blair takes a minute to chew and swallow, then sighs. "No," she says, because it's the worst part. "He's not."

"Alright, well…it was pretty messed up," Jenny says. "He shouldn't have called you that. Or gone after your spot."

Blair takes another bite of that sad little sandwich.

"But you didn't really…say those things about him, did you?"

Blair looks down at the sandwich in her hands with its two half-moon bite marks, her legs in their white stockings, her pale blue shoes against the dark floor speckled with paint. "Jenny, why are you here?"

Jenny seems surprised. "I felt bad."

"For me? Even after –" Blair clears her throat. "What I did?"

Jenny nods. "I know you don't…Like, I know I'm not your first choice of friend or anything. But I always wanted to be your friend, and after everything that happened last year, it seems like you could use one."

"I'm not a good friend." She never even tried to contact Serena after she went away. Serena was probably just as happy to be rid of her as everyone else.

"Maybe you just have to try harder," Jenny suggests, and there's something a little challenging in it.

Blair looks at her, that small, determined face. "You Humphreys don't give up, do you," she says.

Jenny grins at her. "It's kind of our thing."







Blair does three things after that. First she comes clean to Mrs. Benedetti, which, of course, disqualifies her from the program. Second, she starts having lunch in the courtyard with Jenny. Third, she decides to make amends with Dan. She goes to the gallery early on Sunday, before it opens, but the stone-faced person who opens the door for her is Vanessa.

"I should let you go all the way back to the city," Vanessa says over her shoulder on her way up into the gallery proper. "I shouldn't even bother talking to you."

"And yet you are anyway," Blair says wryly. "Fancy that."

Vanessa turns on her heel, facing Blair with both eyebrows arching up incredulously. "Look, I don't like you, I'm sure I've made that more than clear. Dan is my best friend and you really hurt him. If it were up to me, you know, good riddance."

Blair's teeth sink into her tongue and she curls her hands at her sides. "And? What's your point?"

"Someone has to call you on your shit," Vanessa says. "I guess right now that's me."

"I can do that just fine myself."

Vanessa really pulls the disbelieving act better than anyone. "Oh really?"

"I know, okay," Blair says, annoyed. "I'm not the Antichrist, I just fucked up."

Vanessa looks at her for a moment and Blair dares to believe she sees the suggestion of a smile on Vanessa's face.

"I'm trying to fix it," Blair says. "I gave up the spot."

Vanessa blinks, genuinely caught off guard, though she smothers it in a moment, her face calm and sarcastic once more. "I don't get it, but Dan really likes you. It's embarrassing. He's been moping nonstop. He tried to send you like fifty apology texts but he chickened out."

It's Blair's turn to be caught off guard. "Really?"

"He feels bad about what he said." Vanessa shrugs. "Even though it sounds totally deserved to me."

Blair rolls her eyes. "Yeah, I get it. As ever, V – your company has been a pleasure."

"V?" Vanessa tosses it off with half a smirk, finally continuing on her way to the café. "I'm the only one on today, Sundays are slow." She grabs an apron and holds it up. "Wanna lend a hand?"

Vanessa is lucky that Blair is wearing comfortable shoes. "I suppose I could," she says, reaching to snatch the apron. "Helping the needy is good karma, after all."

"And we both know you could use a lot of that," Vanessa says before moving off to go open the doors for the public.







Blair had spent the weeks after cotillion trying to ignore Dan entirely. Now that she isn't trying anymore, it seems like he's everywhere.

She sees him coming up the steps every morning in his old beat-up green Army jacket, the one she'd tried to get him to throw out. She sees him through library windows, brow furrowed as he reads and reads and takes notes on top of notes. She sees him smile at something Nelly Yuki says and commands herself not to be jealous.

"You are totally crushing on my brother," Jenny says, sounding supremely pleased about it.

"Oh, hush, Little J," Blair huffs.

In between stalking Dan (as Jenny put it, because Blair would never say such a thing, and also that is not at all what she's doing), she makes up with Iz. "Really, Blair," she says earnestly, eyes big, "I didn't know it was going to turn into a huge thing, I –"

"It's fine," Blair says, firmly, the kind of easy forgiveness she has never given. Under normal circumstances she would probably set up Iz's boyfriend with another girl and let Iz catch them in the act – or maybe some lowkey public humiliation would suffice. But the truth is she knows Iz didn't mean anything by it, and she knows Iz feels awful anyway. "I believe you."

Blair doesn't exactly credit Dan with everything– she isn't really the type to pass off credit to anyone except herself. But she can't deny that he did help her; there are things she never would have done without his prodding, irritating at it was at the time. When she thinks of him, his words, his voice saying I'm proud of you, she feels warm in a way she hasn't since Serena was still around. When Serena would be there to tell her you can do it, B! with such absurd, charming authenticity that Blair couldn't help but believe her. Dan makes her feel something like that.

It's this realization that sends her straight to his locker at last bell. She gets there before he does so she waits, half-afraid he'll catch sight of her and leave, but she tries to remind herself of what Vanessa had said. Dan really likes you. It's embarrassing.

Blair knows something about embarrassing. She hung that stupid snowflake necklace on her vanity.

Dan freezes when he sees her, books in his arms, and then his face sets into a humorless expression. "Oh," he says. "It's you."

"That's some way to talk to a lady," Blair says. "I didn't teach you that."

Dan rolls his eyes and steps up besides her, jerking his locker open and beginning to stack his textbooks away. "Blair, if I wanted to see you –"

"You'd have sent one of those forty texts you composed?"

He sighs. "I should have taken Jenny for a traitor."

"Vanessa, actually."

Dan – very melodramatically, in Blair's opinion – rubs a hand over his face. "Turncoats everywhere."

Half a smile curls her lips. "So it would seem."

"It's just –" The locker closes between them with a clatter. The hall has emptied around them, and the sound echoes in the silence. "It's like you have no trust or faith in your own abilities. You would have probably kicked my ass if you'd just let your transcript stand for itself but no, you let insecurity get the best of you."

Her eyebrows arch. "And you let middle class superiority complex get the best of you."

"Me?" he says, aghast.

"Yes, you, Dan Humphrey, you," she says. "Face it: you're the judgiest person I've ever met outside of…well, myself, and you're certainly proud of it, and any puncture in that puffed up cloud of self-importance is apparently staggering for you."

"I – You know –" Dan fumbles, then snaps, "That isn't the point."

"But it's true," Blair says coolly. "So don't pretend like I'm the only person with flaws. I'm sorry. I did what I could to make it right and I'm working on it. But I'm not the worst person on earth."

"I never said you were," Dan says, and it comes out too soft, devoid of anger.

"I am sorry," Blair repeats. "But I don't have any regrets either." And she curls a hand in his tie, dragging him down and into a hard kiss. His mouth opens against hers like he can't help it, like maybe he's been waiting for this as much as she has.

When she lets him go, he's confused. It's written all over his face. "No one's watching," he says.

Blair smiles. "I know."

heeeeeeeeey so anyone know where a girl could get some penny dreadful icons? am in desperate need of vanessa ives icon 2 use on this graveyard site & have lost all icon-making skills (never really had them to begin with tbqh)

Potentially Relevant Links:
+ the last recap
+ links to watch
+ other links + subs






It has been TOO LONG. I hope to never be away from Gossip Girl Acapulco this long again.

Let's dive right into this bad boy. Last episode, Barbie disappointed all of us (and herself) by fucking Max, so in this episode opener she puts on her frilliest feathered hat to attend church and confess her sins. Voiceover Gossip Girl tells us Barbie does this for an hour EVERY DAY. This show really took religious!Blair and ran with it.








Also it's an OUTDOOR CONFESSIONAL, because of course. When are these people ever inside? Now, I don't live in Acapulco and I am not a Catholic, so I cannot speak to the veracity of such a thing, but it seems to me that an outdoor confessional defeats the very purpose of confession. Literally anyone could hear or see!

It's all very familiar: Barbie bemoans her bad decisions, we get flashbacks to a metric ton of fucking set to some scratchy pop song, and also some classic Blair dialogue absurdity – she says she "joined in carnal pleasure with a being so disgusting that God himself would reject him as a son."

Man, this show does such a great job of shitting on Chuck.

Barbie asks for her chastity back but unfortunately there's a no return policy on that. The priest looks deeply pained by all of this and tells her to do some charity work as penance, then advises her not to fuck Max again, which she swears she won't do as she intends to never see him ever again. Guess how long that lasts.

Barbie goes to the church proper to pray when ominous organ music kicks in (I'm not kidding) and Max makes his appearance like a literal devil on her shoulder, throwing in a couple of Bible-themed sex puns. They joke about how he should be burning on holy ground, etc. Max is like YOU'LL BE GOING TO CONFESSION A LOT TO CONFESS ALL THE BONING WE'RE GONNA BE DOING but Barbie shuts him down right quick. Break the cycle, Barbarita!

She also drops the news that it's her and Nico's ENGAGEMENT DINNER tonight. That is another thing. Instead of just awkwardly making Blair try on the Vanderbilt diamond, Nico and Barbie get ACTUAL ENGAGED. Also, Barb, honey – you have caught Nico cheating on you at least twice. Maybe take the hint?

All-around thirst trap Acapulco Dan is a huffy little darling as he has breakfast, still smarting over the fact that Sofia and Vanessa ripped him several new assholes at the ball. This makes Rufus realize that he probably shouldn't have asked his son's ex-girlfriend to move in with them. You fucking THINK, Rufus? But Daniel brushes that off, saying it's his fault because he should have talked to Vanessa about everything. Except…he did? He didn't lie to Vanessa about anything except going to the ball, and I figured that was because she didn't ~approve of such a bourgeois event (unless Jenny was the one going, of course). It's not like she didn't know Sofia existed or that Dan wanted to be with her. Plus Vanessa cheated and ditched him! I have decided that Sofia is the only person allowed to be mad in this situation.

Rufus also takes a moment to be all: hey maybe you should break up with Sofia so I can date her mother? Haha what who said that?

Vanessa shows up as Dan is leaving and he casually forehead kisses her goodbye. Wait. Are y'all fighting or not? Last time they spoke onscreen, she was confessing her love??








Nico goes to find Jenny and give her a big fancy box of "don't tell my girlfriend that I'm in love with Sofia." He was drunk! He wasn't thinking! He is definitely not in love with anybody at all! Except Barbie, hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

Jenny is surprised that Nico got her favorite sweets (something delicious-sounding called alfajores) and he says he did his research, which Jenny totally falls for. They make cute faces at each other, Jenny all knowing and smirky and Nico all faux-bashful Archibald charm. Goddammit I ship it. Nico reiterates that Jenny shouldn't tell anyone just as Barbie appears (sans dramatic organ music, sadly), suspicious as usual. Nico totally gives away Jenny's alfajores like a JERK and Barbie's like, gross, who wants delicious sandwich cookies filled with dulce de leche? Jenny's poor present is totally going to end up in the trash.

Barb is running in full Waldorf mode right now. She's passive aggressive to Jenny, dismissing her while simultaneously ordering her to do something, and in straight-up denial about Nico even though last episode she rightfully (if drunkenly) told him off. She tells him that she has decided what happened isn't his fault. It was THE DRUGS making him ADDICTED TO WOMEN. Amazing. Continue to lie to yourself, sister girl, you do it so well.

Nico does not even bother to conceal how much he does not care for absolutely any facet of his life. Nate and Blair act like they have been married for thirty years and are just staying together for the kids at this point.

Onto Daniel and Sofia! He is trying to explain himself to her but she says he doesn't need to; he's free to do whatever with whomever, no big deal, tralalala. It's so fake cool on her part that I want to pat her on the head. (People have left me comments about how Sofia is not pretty, so maybe you just have to experience her in motion or maybe I just love Serena an overwhelming amount, because I adore this chica.) Daniel says nothing happened, Vanessa is just a friend (I do not get the lines the Parras have made in regards to this relationship), and he is head over heels for Sofia. She is full swooning by the end of it so they make out against the wall.

Acapulco Dan is smooth as fuck.








Back at the Hotel Boca Chica, Rufus is grilling up burgers in the middle of the living room. Normally I would not bother to tell you all such a minor detail that has no bearing on anything, but this is weird as fuck. The one time it would make sense for these people to be outdoors, they're inside! What the hell. I think there's an implied balcony but I still think it's dumb.

Jenny and Dan do some cute squealing about how his and Sofia's makeout is on GG. Vanessa snidely informs Dan that she is totally fine with this, she is fine with everything, her only concern is his potential absorption into the Second Estate (I had to google so I could make that reference). Now he's even checking Gossip Gal (!), she says, in English, and Daniel corrects her with the most over-pronounced "Gossip Guuuuurrrrrlllll" I have ever heard. My pretentious darling.

Daniel insists that he is the same guy as before. Vanessa just needs to get to know Sofia! Vanessa suggests they bring Sofia surfing! YES LET'S.

Also, Vanessa is rocking an outfit I actually think is hella cute? It's a french braid with a gray tank top and camo shorts with a gigantic necklace. I'd wear that? Well, okay, not the necklace. I have some lines.








But before the surfing can commence, Barbie and Sofia have breakfast. Is it just me or do people only ever seem to eat breakfast on this show (on the original too, come to think)? Barbie arrives fresh from the convent where she was being TRULY SELFLESS and helping unwed single mothers. Sofia is like, haha funny joke. But Barbie insists, claiming she's learning not to judge people by their actions. Sofia makes a face that was impossible to capture in a screen cap, but it was hilarious, and it is the face you yourself would probably make if you heard a girl like Blair Waldorf was helping out single mothers at a convent.

(Meanwhile Barbie is looking hella adorable in a little leopard dress. Now that it's summer here I'm starting to vibe all these wardrobe choices.)

They move on to discussing Vanessa and Barb lays down two rules: 1, never trust an ex-girlfriend and 2, that bitch needs to leave Acapulco NOW (it's ironic when you remember who she's saying this to). Sofia gives Daniel a call and he's obviously with Vanessa, who tells him to invite Sofia to the beach now. Vanessa will teach her how to surf! Let me tell you, that is a plot I wish we had in the original. HOW FUCKING CUTE WOULD THAT BE. However, Vanessa has no plans to actually do that, she just wants to be a raging bitch to Sofia in person.

Eric gives Jenny a pair of Gucci shoes as a thank-you and a friendship incentive. Jenny says she couldn't possibly accept them but she is basically having an orgasm so Eric insists. Jenny says it might be the best day of her life! Bless this angel. One of the things I love about this Jenny – and I think it's something specific to this actress' portrayal, actually – is how joyful she is. Sis gets knocked down and pops right back up again. It's almost like all the bullshit just rolls off her back. And there was definitely a component of that to Taylor's Jenny too, but this girl is just so infectiously happy.








Onto surfing! Daniel is smooth some more and then he and Sofia make out while Vanessa looks disgruntled. Sofia tries to get out of surfing by pretending to forget her wetsuit (she has a wetsuit on hand?) but Vanessa has a spare! Vanessa sends Dan away so she and Sofia can practice in private but really it's so Vanessa can be a jerk without an audience. She hands Sofia a bag and Sofia points out that the "wetsuit" Vanessa gave her is actually just a pair of shorts. Vanessa is all "whoops! I definitely absolutely had no idea! I'd lend you the one I'm wearing but it's already all wet! Hahaha make do I guess!!!!!"

Surfing montage! Sofia is cute as hell as she wipes out again and again. She is terrible but because she's Serena she keeps trying anyway. She even loses her bikini top at one point which leads to Dan hilariously trying to mime TITS at her.

Engagement party time! But first Barbie summons Jenny and brushes her hair threateningly in the mirror while smiling at Jenny like she's about to shank her. It only takes about seven seconds of menacing before Jenny totally narcs on Nico. Shouldn't have taken her candy away, dude.








Nico and Max arrive just in time for this, because in Soap Opera Land you always arrive mere seconds after someone was talking about you (and/or you catch the person you love kissing someone else by staring at them sadly through a window). Little Jenny is crying by now and, job done, Blair orders her out. Nico goes after Jenny but it's just so Max and Barbie can Chuck-and-Blair at each other some more. Max smarms about how Nico will react upon finding out his "present" is a "hand-me-down"? Um, fuck you, Max. The offensive shit that continually comes out of this boy's mouth, I swear to god. I think in the early days off GG, I liked Chuck/Blair at least in part because he confirmed and supported Blair's grody worldviews and I loved Blair so I wanted her to have that even though it was gross. Also I was seventeen. I only bring it up because now (in my mid-20s) it is one of the things I find the most off-putting about their relationship. Blair (and by extension, Barbie) has so much internalized horrible stuff that she spews out at the world at large and Chuck just sits there like: yep, all of your creepy gender notions and misogyny and self-hate are totally the right things to believe and feel. And he just feeds it and cultivates it. They really are poison.

Aaaaaaanyway.

Max grossly kisses a resisting Barbie on the cheek, and I left in the subtitles from our friend the CB Subtitler just so…you all…could see. Like, Barbie straight up looks like she wants to cry when he touches her, what the fuck is this ship. I GET So Wrong It's Right ships but I'm sorry, I can never get down with stuff like this. Now that he's sexually assaulted a girl, Max doesn't feel the need to stay for the rest of the party, so he bounces.








Nico, of course, just misses the kiss. He was too busy looking perplexed about Jenny, like he sort of felt bad for her but was too confused to know for sure. Nicolas, you are dead useless but your sweater vest is adorable so I guess we can call it even.

Engagement dinner! Leonora is scary! El Capitán is on coke! Acapulco Anne has nothing on Real Housewife of NYC Anne. Everyone kisses each other and says hello for eighteen years. Then everyone talks about how Nico and Barbie are perfect together and how beautiful their kids will be and how Nico is totally going to law school and becoming a politician. Everyone looks acutely miserable. Fun!

El Capitán forces Nico to propose to Barbie RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW even though everyone is so deeply uncomfortable, myself included. Someone pour me a glass of wine.

Super tense music plays as Nico gets down on one knee and slides a gigantic rock onto Barbie's finger. He wants to actually crawl right out of his skin. But poor sweet Barbie can't help cracking an excited little smile, bless her broken heart.








Now some other things happen in almost confusingly quick succession. El Capitán is a relentless dick to his wife until she leaves the room and he follows, physically assaulting her offscreen. It happens very rapidly, and the visual framing is kind of evasive, like the show wants to get it over with as quickly as possible – not that I blame them for that. It's interesting that the shift of storyline makes Anne the victim of the Captain's physical abuse instead of Nate; the outcome is much the same either way, but I think it's a change that bears some analyzing.

I don't remember if El Capitán ends up assaulting Nico too, down the line; I wouldn't be surprised. He is a lot more obviously villainous and Anne is a lot more obviously sympathetic, but Nico is also much more active within his own storyline than Nate was. Things happened to Nate and he just sort of looked sad and pretty and helpless about them. I always think of Nate as someone who really wants to be the kind of person who fixes things but has no tools with which to do this, so he just tries to quietly minimize damage and come out of things with some of his pride intact. Nico is somewhat less passive. And later when his family has lost all their money and he has nowhere to go, there is no Humphrey adoption or manipulative Duchess; Nico marches himself over to Catherine with the intention of trading his body for money.

But back to the matter at hand. Nico punches his dad in the face and tells him never to touch Anne again! Anne tries to say she just fell but no one is buying it and Nico leaves even though Barbie tries to stop him. This episode is like a mishmash of 1x07 and 1x08, except CB already fucked and it's not Blair's birthday because it was her birthday in the pilot. Sheesh. Plot whiplash.

Onto the club! Sofia gets Daniel and Vanessa in instantly even though Vanessa was going on and on about how no one gets into this club, ever, no way no how. Sofia looks hot – or "bitchin'" as one of the minions puts it, because she is obviously confused about what year it is. Barbie shows off her ring to everyone like it's normal and nothing is wrong at all why would you even suggest that, but she also makes time to be a bitch to Vanessa. She practically pees in a territorial circle around Sofia, and there's also this: "I don't know if you've looked in a mirror lately, Vanessa, but you look………………so……………….pretty!!!!"

There are a lot of subtle, lolzy, little bitchy touches between Sofia and Vanessa and Barbie during this half of the episode. It's super cute. Like Barbie will look triumphant any time she thinks Sofia is "winning" or Vanessa and Sofia will be teeth-grittingly polite to each other until they turn away and can safely roll their eyes. Also Vanessa over-dramatically clutches her ~surfing injury~ every time Sofia really annoys her.

Lots of club dancing. All of the girls are standing on their seats and dancing in unison like they did the last time they were here, the only club set the budget would allow for (presumably). Max and Barbie have that entire butterfly conversation, it's pretty much exactly the same straight down to murdering the mariposas. Max tells her that Nico having second thoughts would be the best possible thing that could happen, and he kind of has a point, if only because Barb would never be the one to break it off. But he's also so incredibly rude and gross about everything that who even cares what points he's making.

Barbie shuts him down ONCE AGAIN and he counters that she wasn't that good in bed anyway. What a prince.








Vanessa tries to start a deep conversation about cinema with Daniel in this extremely loud and busy club, but Sofia is having cheer sex with him from one of the benches so he isn't paying attention. Sofia pulls Vanessa up onto the bench to dance with all the other girls. Vanessa looks like she would rather drink poison. Then Sofia leaves her there to bust some moves with Daniel, and they only shoot her from the neck up so you can't tell that she has no rhythm.

Barbie takes this moment to "insult" Vanessa by calling her pretty again; she doesn't seem to understand how insulting people works. She does say that Vanessa could never win against Sofia. Apparently having done her research, Vanessa's like I HEARD YOU CAN'T EITHER which is a low blow but also a sick burn so I respect it. Barbie is probably so turned on by Vanessa's combination of meanness and superiority, not that she would ever say as much.

Max, having seen all this go down, decides to pour salt in Barbie's very obvious wounds by telling her that Nico is standing her up and he's only with her because his family is bankrupt. Max relishes departing this information. Poor Barbie spends 90% of this episode two seconds away from crying.

Max says if Nico does come, he'll leave her alone. If not, sex is on. This is just as gross as it ever was.








Nico sees Jenny outside trying to get into the club and decides to hang out with her instead of his fiancée. Jenny is SO DOWN. "[Shipping it like Fedex.]" says the Subtitler and truly I agree.

They go down to the beach where they sit and chat. Nico confesses that he and Bárbara are together for the wrong reasons. Their parents put too much pressure on them and he's not even sure he loves her anymore. Jenny says, "No one should tell you how to live your life," which is like the magic spell to unlocking Nate's chastity belt. Tell the least independent boy on earth that he should be independent and he will drop trou like THAT.

Sadly he does not do so quite yet. He just pops a little boner in his heart for our Jen and then compliments her on how wise she is for a fifteen year old. Until this moment I did not realize Jenny was only supposed to be fifteen. She says she's an old soul. I say you're eighteen years old, Nicolas, so back the fuck off this child. Before he can back on or off, Jenny has to rush to meet curfew so they hug in a friendly way, only of course it ends up on Gossip Girl. Everyone at the club sees and starting whispering very obviously about Barbie. :(

Sofia is heartbroken for her but Barbie rushes off, resisting any comfort Sofia might offer and leaving a spot open for Max to ooze right in. Poor Barbie is finally sobbing in a weirdly little rocky crevice in the club. Max is not gross for two entire seconds of his life. Then they start making out.

Dan and Vanessa leave (Vanessa: I'll take care of him, don't worry! Sofia: this bitch) so Sofia finally goes after her gal pal only to find her balls deep in the worst mistake of 2007 come to haunt us for all eternity.








You would think the episode was over now, based on how they usually go – big shocker, no resolution, classic soap – but surprisingly it is not. Instead we move along to the next day.

Nico tells his parents he's calling off the wedding and when El Capitán protests, Nico is like: whatever, you are a straight up abusive piece of shit. Nico out! Go, baby!

Barb and Sof have ANOTHER breakfast but Sofia is really just there to talk about the Max reveal. Barbie has a cute leopard print sleeping mask because she is the cutest person on earth, and I guess leopard was the theme for breakfast in this episode. She admits it and says it's gross but she can't stop herself! Sofia makes a face like: we've all been there, girlfriend, except not with Max because he's the walking plague. She thought Barbie wanted to wait for someone special and Barbie gets in a dig about how Sofia is a slut AGAIN. OH MY GOD ENOUGH. All the leopard sleeping masks in the world cannot erase all this unnecessary shaming of your perfectly cute friend.








Then Barbie makes a bid to out-gross Max with this little chestnut: Sofia is jealous because Max "prefers virgins to sluts." That may be among the grossest sentences I have ever heard. Someone who would ever even think a thing like that let alone voice it is the fucking garbage king of garbage island (and I mean Barbie as much as Max). Sofia tells Barbie one day she won't have any friends left. Sofia out!

Nico is relaxing nude on Max's couch again while Max brings them each a cocktail, dressed in a silky robe. We all know the joke, right? I'm not going to make it because we all know it and it's so obvious that it's almost too cheap. Max is trying to ascertain if his boyfriend likes his girlfriend and probably doing the math in his head to figure out how likely a threesome is. He does encourage Nico to break up with Barbie and gives that whole Chuck Nate "I only care about three things" speech which, whatever, their friendship never did anything for me even when I still liked Chuck.

Nico goes to find Barbie to do just that but she beats him to the punch. She is adorably golfing in an adorable golf outfit. She reminds Nico of all his cheating (I had forgotten how much soaps like to remind you of plot points ad naseum, so you can check in at any time and get caught up) and then tells him he should focus on his family because they need him and she doesn't. Then she hands back the ring and sashays away. GOOD FOR YOU. Nico looks extremely confused and also like the act of Barbie breaking up with him has made him suddenly fall in love with her again. So, classic Nate.

These episodes do like to end on a ~reveal~ and here's today's: Allison's back! No explanation! No buildup! No Jenny going to get her! Well, it's possible there was some kind of hint in a Rufus/Lily scene that I chose not to pay attention to. Anyway, Mom's back!








Please get better at your surprise endings, GGA, they are always weird.

Until next time! Which is THE FLASHBACK EPISODE, one of my favorites in any incarnation of this show. Can't wait!

Just here to remind you to write your fic already! Jk someone remind me to write my fic already.

The summer is very nearly half over, which means you should be thinking about your summer exchange fics! This is just a little reminder, lest you forget. If you have to drop out, now would be the time, though you should not, because I would cry and shake my fist at the heavens.

Assignments are due by August 30th, so I’ll see you then!

++ Also p.s. stainofmylove is hosting a ficathon which tragically I missed the start of but here it is ppl should go be active on this website.

I haven't done a TV post in a while, which is unfortunate because I feel like it's been a particularly good year for TV. Or maybe just a particularly good year for me and TV; I feel like I've been watching and enjoying so many more shows than I did in recent years past.

As of right now, I am desperately obsessed with Penny Dreadful. Desperately obsessed. I have honestly not felt like this about a show in a long time; FX's You're the Worst probably came the closest to rustling up such intensity of feeling in me. And of course excluding longer-running now-defunct stuff like Mad Men. I am just so satisfied with Penny Dreadful; it is like everything 13-year-old goth me would have ever wanted in a show, except also attuned to 25-year-old me's non-asshole tastes. What do I even do until season three.

I don't know if anyone on my flist watches it so I'mma try to keep this post a mix of spoilery and spoiler-free; let's just all dive in together.








Eva Green was a big draw to the show for me because I've been a fan for years and the show more than delivers on the Eva front. It's an ensemble but she is undoubtedly the centerpiece, and I find it really delightful to watch the show revel in and cater to her immense talent. No one else could be Vanessa Ives. She's it. She's so casually terrifying in the role and then simultaneously vulnerable; gentle and good one second and then viciously vengeful the next. Her physicality is astonishing. And I always felt Eva had a very Old Hollywood quality, just in that she can be incredibly cool and self-possessed and glamorous, but there is also something hella weird and zany about her. She's just amazing and I am so happy she has a role on a show that deserves her. I don't want to be tooooo spoilery about the Vanessa stuff because it's so great but man. MAN. THE END OF SEASON TWO.

(I feel like my Eva section is too short but how much could I rhapsodize on her perfection??)

Also lusting after Josh Harnett like it is 2001???????? I thought he had fully faded from cultural relevancy, but who knew he was actually just quietly becoming cuter this entire time? I adore Ethan and it's made me realize a type I have, or perhaps have always had, and it is such a cliche type: i.e., very tall, very gentle men. It's so Porn for Women but there you have it. Ethan is so kind and so protective but it's not in an obnoxious or overly self-serving way. He's not insensible to his own faults or mistakes, but he's also able to function as a person while managing his remorse and self-loathing. I really like how the show handles the sins of Ethan's past and the small ways it lets you know he never, ever forgets them. Nor does he sugarcoat or rationalize them, as other characters (cough cough Victor) can do. It's really the best Josh Harnett has ever been in anything, bar none.

Ethan is also an incorrigible flirt and I love this. He will flirt with anyone any time, any place, anywhere.

(Also is everyone on Penny Dreadful super petite or is old Joshua really that huge??? He's always towering over everyone and hunching into little Victorian chairs and putting his big hands tenderly onto women's faces.)








Ethan/Vanessa reeeeaaaallllly gets me as a ship because of the sheer RESPECT they have for each other. Mutual respect is catnip to me. I think it is an Ella-and-Char definitive thing from my youth, but maybe a Lois-and-Clark thing even before that. It just works for me. And part of what's great is that it's not unique to their relationship; it's not because Vanessa is ~so special. Ethan is equally respectful to Brona and I really loved them together too. Being new to the show and entirely unfamiliar with fandom, I'm curious how Ethan/Brona was received. I suspect…not well though admittedly I have absolutely nothing to base this on except a feeling. The point is Ethan was never once judgmental or cruel to Brona, only kind and supportive. And I love that, because it's rare, especially in a complicated antihero of a leading man.

Ethan and Vanessa are also interesting from a romantic standpoint because even though from episode one it's obvious that they're the ShowTP, they hit the usual beats in a much nicer way. I don't know, ShowTPs tend to bother me a lot of the time, partially out of spite because I don't like being told what to do, and also because any informed qualities on television can be iffy in reception. Like, if you're told two people are Destined and Connected but the actors don't have just the right chemistry, or you personally as an audience member aren't feeling it, then the entire endeavor can fall flat and a huge portion of the show rings false. I wouldn't say Eva and Josh have heartstopping chemistry or anything, but the relationship between their characters feels deep, true, and grounded.








Speaking of unexpected kindness, I think that is kind of a hallmark of the show? This is not to say people aren't cruel on this show; they can be very cruel at times. Part of it is perhaps mannered Victorian politeness but I think there is just a kind heart beating at the center of this entire production. Supernatural shows are often better than most at creating believable found families, and PD is no exception; the way these people grow to count on each other, the depth of friendship formed between them, the creation of family where there was none – it's all very beautifully done. I was really missing that aspect of a show. And so like (some, I should say) family, even when there's bitterness or anger, there is a still a baseline of love. Even when some of that kindness is selfish or at the very least self-serving (looking at you so very hard, Victor), I still respond to its being there at all.

While I'm nudging old Victor, let us actually speak of him. Again, I'm not in fandom for this show, but I would hazard a guess that Victor is relatively popular among fans. And I really like the character but wowza is he a mess internally. He reminds me a lot of season one Simon from Misfits, in a way: a character who is cagey and awkward, or just, you know, the Weird Kid but played by a cute actor who lends the character an irresistibly endearing quality. I think this was ultimately to Simon's detriment, as the show turned him into more of a classic hero and that kind of dissolved his more creeper qualities, like that time he had a pizza with a corpse (remember?). But the show is thankfully not ignorant to Victor's shit qualities, they are obviously very much on purpose, and I appreciate that conflicting push-pull of like-dislike as a viewer (when it's done right). Mad Men was the best at that. So, like, Victor is not doing anything with the intention of being malicious and he gets ahead of himself and he believes himself to be wholly justified but he's wrong and fucked up and we all know it.

Actually, with regards to the men on this show (Victor, Malcolm, Ethan, and even Dorian though perhaps not Caliban/John Clare), part of what I love is how aware the show is of the character's sins. It does not flatter or romanticize or even lowkey enjoy, which I feel is sometimes the case even with shows that are purposefully morally ambiguous. It's hard not to do that tbh! Especially because as mostly non-garbage humans, writing is such a safe way to experience shady shit and it can be very fun to do that. But there is a distinct lack of it on PD that I find refreshing. It's messy and gross and the characters do fucked up things but the show makes you look at it. I love Victor even though he's garbage and it's definitely a huge relief to have it narratively acknowledged. Like, for example, Victor is emotionally abusive to Lily and abuses his position of power over her. At one point Lily flat-out says to him, "It's abuse." It's like when Betty finally got to divorce Don and there was that amazing episode when they finally hashed out all the dark, gross, murky parts of their relationship. I love emotional ambiguity a lot but there is a immense satisfaction in finally getting to call a duck a duck, you know?

My only qualms are Dorian Gray (Grey?) and Caliban/John Clare and I feel like a lot of that is due to miscasting tbh. I don't know if I'm supposed to have sympathy for Caliban (I think we are supposed to be sympathetic to him based on his scenes with Vanessa??), but he's such a fucker that all I actually want for him is bloody death. For such a whining, pathetic, cringing man he's also such an entitled prick. Dorian is, at times, pure fan fiction (I don't even mean that in a bad way, at all, and in fact I find it quite interesting how fanfic has invaded the narratives of Real Shows, PD is a good example of it done in a good way) and I would probably like him a lot if someone else were playing him. For a character who is supposed to be overwhelmingly attractive and charismatic to an absurd degree, they could not have picked more of a charisma black hole than this dude. His new haircut and the delightful introduction of Angelique have made him more bearable in season two, but oh man did I want to murder him all throughout season one (it probably also helps that he's steering clear of my faves this year). This is a dude who supposedly bags Josh Harnett AND Eva Green in rapid succession??? THAT guy??? He's not even cute which would be fine if he could act, but he can't, and it's especially glaring when put opposite someone like Eva who rips apart the very molecules in the air when she so much as glances at someone a certain way. Their sex scene made me so mad, lol, like GET AWAY FROM HER who gave you the right to breathe Eva Green's air????? Swanning around in his Victorian Jim Morrison outfits, all rings and leather pants, which should by all rights be amazing but is actually just incredibly annoying.

Though, again, much improved in season two.

AND THEN LET'S TALK ABOUT ALL THE MONSTER WOMEN. Oh my god so many monster women! So many monstrous women literally and figuratively!! There is much talk of The Master on this show, by which one means the literal devil and not that movie with Joaquin Phoenix. But we never see the Master, so primarily we are dealing with his female henchmen, so to speak. In the first season there are vampires and while the main ones are rather genderless but presumed male, the sheer numbers of Dracula's Wives types is staggering; and Mina is the driving force behind a lot of the first season's action, and she's both victim and antagonist herself. But my favorite, my absolute favorite, is the WITCHES. MY GOD THE WITCHES. The devil language, the rituals, the monstrous appearance, the contorting physicality. Helen McCrory's KNIFE RINGS. Not to mention good old devil-possessed Vanessa herself, the burgeoning Head Witch.

And there's Billie Piper. She's another one I've always liked (never watched DW but I loved Secret Diaries of a Call Girl) and she is phenomenal on this show. If you have seen The Scene on tumblr…it does not even do it justice. I was, like, sitting there wide-eyed at my computer with my hands on my face. Chilling. Shattering. It's a damn shame genre shows never get nominated because Eva Green and Billie Piper both deserve little statuettes with their names on them for their work on this show. Their performances are STAGGERING. I absolutely love when you can see an actor really sink their teeth into something and then shred it to little tiny pieces.

Also for a show that is so Serious Business and full of literature and horror there is also such a sense of humor! Dr. Frankenstein and Vanessa go shopping! Ethan Chandler's Wild West Show & Accompanying Moustache! Dorian goes on a Victorian table tennis date! Vanessa teaches Ethan how to waltz!








It is just such a good show and it makes me so happy and everyone should go watch it. I have not even talked about the fashion. I have not even talked about things with the specificity they deserve. I have not even talked about the worldbuilding or built-in mythos of the show. There is just TOO MUCH I am too pleased.

The deadline has been moved back until Wednesday, September 16 @ 12:00AM.

I hope if you needed the extra time (cough cough ME) then this is helpful to you; if you were already on schedule, then you are a better man than I and I salute you.