quite nice people
Dan/Blair.
11853 words. R. S4 AU, from 4x18 onward.
Summary: Blair never thought the person she wanted would be Dan Humphrey.
Part One
In the weeks following the blast, Blair has heard nothing from Chuck. This is worrying.
She refuses to go on Gossip Girl and see what he's up to, refuses to give in to her own curiosity. She and Chuck are not together. They are not going to be together, at least not now.
(Sometimes when she's looking at Dan – moments when he's not paying attention to her, reading or cooking, something – and his brow's got that little furrow of concentration, she thinks maybe not ever.)
Serena is still avoiding her too and for all Blair's posturing about making it okay again, she has no idea how to do so. It's much easier to hide out at Dan's, ignoring Serena right back.
"Try talking to her again," Dan urges.
But Blair doesn't feel like explaining herself to anyone. She's too busy learning how to explain herself to Dan. Loathe as she is to admit it, Blair's beginning to accept that Dan understands her, somehow. He blows past her bullshit as easily as she blows past his and she still finds it strange that Dan Humphrey can figure her out without even trying. This has its downsides, of course; Dan is able to recall and remark upon all of Blair's faults with startlingly clear-voiced accuracy. And, though he may or may not have certain virtues she's begun to recognize, Dan is still the most irritating person Blair has ever met. He's stubborn and pretentious, he has horrible taste in art and he never lets anything go. Blair could simply never take him anywhere, not with his hair and his inability to shut up.
They fight. They fight all the time.
At restaurants, museums, the park, anywhere – Blair's sense of appropriateness dissipates entirely around Dan and fights spark like words are kindling. Blair knows the location of each of his weaknesses and she prods them relentlessly, without mercy. His expression shutters closed and his arms cross and he says things like you're always testing me, can't you fucking relax? And Blair doesn't know what to do without tests and ultimatums, without the Empire State at the exact right time or rooftop I love you deadlines.
Blair hates when Dan tries to kiss her in public. It's like she as this momentary flash of horror: why is Dan Humphrey from Brooklyn touching her? Her brain only catches up a half-second after her flinch, by which point Dan's jaw has taken on that tight angry set. Blair will try to brush it off - I don't want Serena to see; why would you think you could kiss me when your hair looks like that; I don't enjoy being pawed in public, thank you - but the damage is done.
Privately everything is so much easier. He doesn't have to be Dan Humphrey from Brooklyn; he can just be her friend Dan with the nice shoulders who knows just how to kiss her neck.
He's always talking about telling his entire poorly bred family with a distasteful look on his face, as though Blair is this awful thing that needs to be warned about in advance. His father already thinks they're a bad idea; Lily has taken Serena's side, for once in her life and with her usual poor timing. Blair doesn't want to be talked up to upstate mothers who already have a bias against Upper East Side heiresses.
(Eleanor could not be reached for comment, not that Blair would tell her anyway.)
Still, when Dan is on the phone with Jenny and his eyes flicker to Blair during a telltale pause before he noticeably changes the subject – Blair is furious. She isn't so awful that Dan should hold her back like bad news.
(Except that she is that awful and they both know it, and that's what makes it worse.)
But at the same time, Blair can't remember ever experiencing this slow built up of affection over such a long time, Dan taking up more and more space in her thoughts until it was impossible to roust him out. Nate had been so immediate, playground love. Chuck was like getting diagnosed with a fatal illness, inescapable. But Dan -
Dan is another story entirely.
One morning she comes home from Dan's to find a package waiting on her bed, a long white box tied with pale blue ribbon. Inside, between sheets of tissue paper, is a seafoam green gown with slim, doubled straps and draping along the sides. Blair would know it anywhere. And she knows just where it came from, so she has Dorota send it right back.
That night she allows Dan to accompany her to a gala, though he's on strict orders to not refer to her as his "girlfriend," lest he wants physical harm to befall him.
Heretofore their relationship has played out primarily behind the closed doors of their respective homes, with the occasional field trip worked in. Blair accepts that they have a relationship of some kind, enjoys it even, but that doesn't mean she's willing to parade him around all of society like he's some great prize.
Even if sometimes, very rarely, she considers him to be a very, very small prize. A consolation prize. The plastic toy at the bottom of a box of cereal.
He does wear suits nicely, at least.
Dan kisses the palm of her hand before going off to circulate as per her orders, leaving her all fluttery and annoyed.
Then, as though on a timer, Chuck's voice behind her: "Well isn't that sweet."
Blair purses her lips so hard she's afraid she smudged her lipstick and says defiantly, "I think so."
Chuck steps up beside her. "Don't you think you're taking this particular revenge a little far?"
Blair rolls her eyes. "What are you talking about?"
"Your business with Brooklyn," Chuck says dryly.
"Right," Blair says. "My business with Dan. Not with you."
Chuck seems unperturbed. "For however long business with Dan lasts."
She turns to retort, glaring slightly, but pauses. There is a sharp familiar gleam in his eyes that she can remember seeing countless times – the morning after the limo, her cotillion, his father's wedding – ruining things with Marcus, ruining things at school, ruining her life. Blair knows that gleam, and it always ends badly for her.
"What did you do," she hisses.
At once a faux-innocent veneer slides over his expression. "Why, Blair," Chuck says, "I don't know what you mean."
"Yes you do, you always do," she snaps. "If you did something to hurt him –"
"Who?" he sneers. "Your low-rent boyfriend?"
"That is neither here nor there!" Blair takes a breath, then demands, "Tell me."
Chuck swallows a mouthful of scotch, shrugs, the picture of disinterest. Stall tactics. "I see you're not wearing the dress I sent."
Stall tactics. Distractions.
"I'm not in habit of wearing hideous moth-eaten gowns."
"It belonged to Princess Grace," he says quietly, looks at her to see how that lands.
"Even princesses make missteps," Blair says, undeterred. She crosses her arms. "What did you think was going to happen, Chuck? That you could buy me back with an old dress? I know everything's a business transaction to you, but that's not how real people work. You don't own me, as much as you may like to." Then, "Now tell me what you did so I can fix it before everything blows up in my face. Again."
"Just gave Humphrey a dose of reality," he says.
Exasperated, Blair sighs. When does Chuck stop exhausting her? She doesn't think he did anything that big, there wasn't time. Spread some lies, maybe; Blair should probably double-check the internship applications she and Dan have been sending out –
"What is that supposed to mean, Chuck?" She taps her foot, narrowed eyes sweeping the crowd for Dan. "We all know your version of reality is majorly skewed."
He touches her then, strokes his knuckles gently down the back of her arm. "I told him the truth, Blair."
Blair looks down at his hand. "Which is?"
"You and I are inevitable," Chuck says. "We both know Humphrey's just a way to waste time before we find our way back to each other."
Blair swallows, her heart feeling stuck in her throat. Chuck's fingers are curling lightly around her elbow but Blair is thinking about Dan kissing her hand even though she expressly told him no PDA, and she curls her fingers tight around the phantom pressure.
But before she can say anything, Chuck tugs her a half-step closer, and that's when she sees Dan – he's over Chuck's shoulder, sitting at the bar and nursing a drink. His eyes widen a little and his brow furrows and she realizes he must've been watching the entire time.
Oh, Humphrey, she thinks, all affection.
"Chuck," she says softly, "Stop touching me. I have to go undo the damage you've caused." If Chuck is taken aback, it doesn't register on his face – not that Blair bothers to check as she brushes past him.
Dan watches her approach, sitting up in his chair like he's about to be halfway out of it. She takes the seat beside him. "I'm sorry about him," she says.
Dan presses his lips together, says, "It's not your job to apologize for him."
"But I am sorry," she insists. "I don't want him doing what he does, planting his nonsense and ruining everything. What exactly did he say?"
"Same old bullshit. All the reasons I don't belong with you and he does. All the ways I'll disappoint you. All – all that." Dan looks down at his drink, swirling the remainder around but not finishing it, just pushing the glass back towards the bartender.
Blair breathes a sigh of relief that it was really only that. Chuck's slipping. "Oh. Good."
"Good?" Dan repeats disbelievingly. "Good?"
"Not good," Blair says hastily. "But, well, it could have been worse."
"He can't do this," Dan says. "He can't insinuate himself into our relationship like this. You're not with him anymore."
"He's not," Blair says, then, "And can we not call it a 'relationship,' Humphrey, really."
This is evidently the wrong thing to say, as Dan immediately pushes back from the counter and gets to his feet, looking very much over it. "I can't do this right now. I need air."
She blinks, a little surprised. "Okay…but you're coming back?"
"I don't know," he mutters. Then he turns, stalks off into the crowd.
In some disbelief, she watches him go. Chuck's not slipping, she thinks. One way or another he always gets what he wants.
Blair makes the rounds for a while, chatting to this or that boring trophy wife, until she's certain Dan isn't coming back. At which point she begins to swallow glass after glass of champagne, growing ever more annoyed with each empty flute. The nerve of that Brooklyn nobody. He's supposed to be smarter than this.
"Did you lose him?" Chuck asks, dry amusement, as she passes him. "I'd check under the skirt of my dear sister –"
"Bite me, Bass," she snaps, then points a warning finger. "Not an invitation."
Blair is a little drunk by the time she gets in the cab to Brooklyn. She fumes silently the whole way, arms crossed over her chest. How dare he. How dare he just walk out, how dare he talk to her like all this was her fault.
She slams the cab door shut and storms up the stairs, winded by the time she makes it to his floor and cursing walk-ups everywhere. She knocks furiously, relentlessly, until the door opens under her hand.
"What's your problem?" Dan says. He's made himself comfortable, tie and jacket gone, and his shirtsleeves are rolled up, top buttons undone. He looks unfairly good.
But no – she's not here for that.
"My problem? Please tell me this is one of your unfunny jokes, because on no earth am I the one with the problem."
Dan looks at her. Then, "You're drunk."
"You're an ass," she retorts.
Dan rolls his eyes, but stands aside to let her in. She's sure to knock roughly into his shoulder anyway. Once inside, she drops her purse unceremoniously and puts her hands on her hips, ready for the fight that's inevitably coming.
"It is not my fault that Chuck took it upon himself to mess with you," she says.
Dan sighs. "I know that. I don't want to talk about him."
"Too bad," Blair says. "I have to talk about him because he keeps doing things like this. I can't do anything about it except ignore him, but you at least don't have to believe the nonsense he says."
"I don't," Dan says. "This isn't about Chuck. Not everything is about him."
"Then what is wrong with you?" she demands.
"I don't know, Blair. You're not my girlfriend so I don't know why you care."
Blair frowns at that. "So that's what this is about."
He's got that annoyed look on his face that she's become familiar with, different than the eye-rolling derision from before they were friends. This runs deeper, somehow. "Do you want to be with me or not?"
Blair purses her lips. "What kind of a question is that?"
"I have to fight with you for forty minutes to get you to go out in public with me," Dan says. "You flinch when I try to kiss you. You refuse to even let me call you my friend half the time. So if you don't want to be with me, then – then don't."
"I don't know why we have to label everything," she mutters. "It's not like you're all that keen either."
Dan raises his eyebrows. "I haven't hidden how I feel about you. I never have."
"Really?" Blair raises her eyebrows right back. "So you've told your sister all about us, then?"
He drops his gaze, abashed. "That's different. That's –"
"You're ashamed of me," Blair says.
And his eyes snap right back to hers. "Don't be crazy."
"I did run her out of town. It's probably awkward to call her up and say –" She tries to mock his voice, low and sarcastic, "Sorry, Jen, I've fallen in love with the girl who tried to ruin your life for three years running."
Dan presses his lips together. "I never said I was in love with you."
Blair rolls her eyes. "Fine. You're not."
"I'm not," he says.
"I know," Blair snaps.
"Anyway," Dan says, "If anyone's ashamed of anyone, it's you ashamed of me."
Blair gives him an unimpressed look. "Of course I'm ashamed of you, you're Dan Humphrey."
"Then break up with me!" he says. "Or non-break up with me, since we're not together. Go be with Chuck. Run your empire together."
She bristles at the word empire, glaring at him. "If I wanted that, Humphrey –" She falters; that is what she's supposed to want, isn't it?
"If you wanted that?"
And Blair looks at him, really looks at him again like she did the night he came to the photoshoot. Looks at the tense and stiff set of his shoulders, clenched jaw belied by the apprehension in his eyes.
"If I wanted that I'd have it," Blair says, more softly than she means to. She remembers being tucked against him in bed, promising that she was just as serious about this as he was. Only neither of them has done a very good job of showing it. "I – I like this. Us." She clears her throat a little and licks her lips, tasting YSL. "You'd be too much trouble to keep around if I didn't."
Dan ducks his head. "You sure it's not too much trouble anyway?"
She blinks. "What?"
"Serena…" he says slowly, gaze still averted. "Chuck. Jenny. My family isn't thrilled about you, and I'm pretty sure your mom still thinks I'm a cater waiter. We fight constantly. You have unimaginably bad taste in art –"
Her anger flares again and she gives him a little, furious shove. "You're such an idiot," she hisses. "I don't know how I let myself get involved with such an idiot."
"Hey, I'm only stating the facts –"
"The facts are my best friend isn't speaking to me because of you!" Blair says. "And I let myself be publicly embarrassed because of you more than once! And all for what, Humphrey? For you to lose your nerve as soon as you remembered I have ex-boyfriends?"
"This is not about Chuck," he says again, "It's about me still being an embarrassment to you, despite everything –"
"Oh, despite what?" she scoffs. "I'm giving up a lot more for you than you are for me."
"Don't do me any favors," he says sharply. "If I'm not worth it, why bother?"
Blair presses her lips together tightly, angry and frustrated and hating him a little, right then. "I don't want to break up with you, okay?" she says, a furious admission. "I like being with you, Humphrey, and even though you're the stupidest person I've ever met and even though I despise you, I've become rather accustomed to you and – and I would be upset if I didn't have you. Alright? Are you satisfied? Have I humiliated myself enough?"
Dan frowns, brow furrowed, confused. "Why is that humiliating?"
"Because you obviously think this is all too much trouble," she says. "Because I'm clearly just putting myself out here to get my heart broken again."
His expression turns a little more intent at that. "Get your heart broken?"
"Figure of speech," Blair says, uncomfortably.
Dan bites his lip. "Maybe I'd be upset too."
"Of course you would be," Blair retorts, "I'm a catch."
Dan rolls his eyes. "You're something, alright."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You're a snob," Dan tells her. "You're a snob and a brat and you seem to operate almost entirely on this kind of ass-backwards pseudo-logic –"
"Don't hold back, Humphrey –"
"And you need to seriously learn how to relax –"
"Are you done?"
"And," he continues, giving her a pointed look, "Somehow, against all sense, none of that is sending me running for the hills."
Yet, she thinks. "Do you want a congratulations for sticking it out, Humphrey?"
"No," he says, annoyed, "I want to be your boyfriend. For real. None of this one step forward, two steps back bullshit."
Blair crosses her arms, uncrosses them. "I suppose that could be…arranged."
He arches an eyebrow. "Could it?"
Blair looks at him, earnest under the sarcasm, and there's a strange kind of lurching feeling in her chest. She'd spent so much time and energy trying to wish these feelings away but that's really the last thing she wants. "Yes. In spite of myself – and, honestly, many times in spite of you – I may…love you. I mean, I didn't want to. I kept trying to make it go away, but," Blair shrugs delicately, "how do you kill a feeling?"
"You're so romantic," Dan tells her.
Blair gives his arm a smack for good measure. "You're still an idiot."
"Are you staying over, or what?"
"No," Blair mutters, grabbing her bag. She's already put too much out there, and she can't stand looking at him for much longer. "I'm still mad at you. I don't want to see you at all. But tomorrow I want to have brunch, uptown."
"Fine," Dan says, with another of those impossibly irritating eye-rolls. "Blair?"
She's at the door, and doesn't turn. "What?"
"I might, kind of…" Dan clears his throat. "Love you, also. Sort of."
She bites her lower lip hard to keep all emotion from her face – not that he could see anyway – and blinks rapidly a few times. "I know that," she says. "I told you, I'm a catch."
Then she's gone.
Blair is surprised to find Serena at home when she gets there. Serena has been working carefully around Blair's schedule, always out when Blair's home or staying at Lily's if Blair doesn't spend the night at Dan's. But she's home now, sitting on the chaise in the living room with her legs tucked under her and her computer open to what sounds like the false chatter of reality tv.
Blair feels a rush that's half-nervous, half-grateful. "Hi," she hazards softly, "I didn't think you'd be home."
Serena glances up, startled, and shuts the laptop. "Oh. I thought you were with Dan." She pauses. "Or Chuck? I saw you getting cozy at the gala and, really, I can't keep up with you these days when it comes to boyfriends."
Blair bites back a retort. "I'm supposed to be the bitch," she says. "It doesn't look as good on you."
Serena doesn't say anything.
Blair sighs. "I would never do anything to hurt you."
Serena snorts. "Too late."
Blair feels awkward, which she hates feeling, and uncomfortable, which is an absurd thing to feel in one's own home. But Serena hasn't left yet, and that's something. Quietly, Blair asks, "How many boys are we going to fight over?"
The line of Serena's mouth tightens. "This isn't about that. This is about you lying to me."
"I didn't lie, I withheld," Blair says, exasperation sparking. "And don't act like you've never lied before. I didn't want to hurt you, I wasn't doing it maliciously." Blair makes a sound like a laugh, only it's devoid of humor. "For once."
Serena doesn't respond again and, frustrated, Blair crosses her arms.
"I really like him, S," she says, muses, "He gets me, in a strange way. He's unbelievably infuriating but there you have it. And –" Here she grows more hesitant. "And I know it might be hard for you to be happy for us, but can't you try?"
"It's just…" Serena looks purposefully at anything but Blair – her manicure, her rings, the pattern of the throw pillows. "He's Dan," she says. "You hate Dan. Only now, out of nowhere, you don't. And you just didn't speak to me for weeks –"
"You weren't here to speak to!" Blair exclaims.
"You weren't either," Serena says pointedly.
Blair looks down, eyes on the straps of her shoes and not Serena's face. "Do you hate me?"
Serena sighs. "I could never hate you, B."
"So you forgive me?" Blair says immediately, and is somewhat rewarded when Serena stifles a laugh.
"This isn't going to be…easy for me," Serena says, adds wryly, "If we made up after you sabotaged my college chances twice with lies about my former drug addictions, then I can't really hate you for this."
"Sorry about that," Blair mumbles.
"I don't want to get in the way, if you're happy," Serena continues. "But it is…hard for me. He's…Dan."
Blair knows that tone, nostalgic and halfway wistful for something that's gone; Blair remembers sitting on the steps of the Met while Serena said how nice Dan was, how funny, and Blair only scoffed. And now here she is, ready to protest the same things – he's funny even if Blair will never let him know it, sweet in a way that makes her stomach flip over, knows her so well, too well.
"I know," Blair murmurs. She remembers Serena dating Nate too, and how even though she wasn't supposed to be jealous anymore, she was, because Nate belonged to her. Except people don't belong to people; that was one lesson Blair should have learned a long time ago. "We really…fit, S."
Serena's silent a moment, looking at her. "Then I guess you're dating Dan," she says.
"Yes," Blair says. "Is it…is it going to be okay, that I am?"
Serena half-shrugs, but shifts over so Blair can sit beside her. "I guess we'll see."
"That's a lot of guessing," Blair says, but she sits. Serena arranges her blanket over Blair's legs and opens the laptop again.
"I can't read the future," she says.
Blair peers at the screen. "Well, I can read the future far enough to say that we will not be watching any Real Housewives in the next ten minutes."
Serena smiles. "A little lowbrow is good for you," she says, nudging Blair.
"Humphrey is not lowbrow, if that's what you're insinuating," Blair sniffs, then, "Ugh, and now I'm defending him. Is this what associating with Brooklynites does to a girl?"
Serena only smiles again. Blair can see she's trying, already, so she slips her arm through Serena's and rests her head on Serena's shoulder, feels the answering weight of Serena leaning against her.
God, Blair's become such a sap.
Blair lets herself into Dan's with the key beneath the mat, pocketing it once she's closed the door behind her. "Humphrey?" she calls, when he is not immediately apparent. She frowns. She knows he doesn't have class on Fridays.
But then there he is, stepping out of the back room, idly turning his phone over in his hands. "Hey," he says.
"I see you're not somehow injured," Blair says, raising an eyebrow, "So I can't quite understand why you weren't returning my texts."
"Does being your boyfriend mean that I have to deal with being nagged all the time now?"
"Yes," she says.
Dan rolls his eyes but he's smiling a little. "So. Jenny's not speaking to me."
Surprised but trying not to show it, Blair shifts her weight a little, heel to heel. "Why?"
"Well… I called her…" Dan sets the phone down and puts his hands in his pockets, stepping closer. "And I said I accidentally fell in love with this crazy girl that's been messing with her life for like three years. She wasn't pleased. But I think she'll come around. She usually does."
"Oh," Blair says.
"Yeah." Dan steps closer still. She hasn't seen them since that brunch after their fight (if it can even be called a fight, ultimately), and they'd been quiet and flustered with each other the whole time. "I think the shock's what gotten to her more than anything else."
"Really." Blair puts her bag aside, moving closer too. Dan reaches out for the fastenings of her jacket, undoing them one by one before pushing it off her shoulders.
"Yeah," he says again, quietly. "How about you?"
Blair lets her fingers catch in his sleeves before he can move too far. "I wouldn't expect a group picnic or anything any time soon. But not badly."
He half-smiles, nods. "I'm not really the picnic type."
"Good." Blair tightens her grip, tugging slightly. She tilts her face up. "Me either."
Dan's smile widens slightly and Blair is just thinking how stupidly noble he must think he is for calling his stupid sister when he leans down to kiss her. It's the first time they've kissed in maybe a week, which seems both ridiculous and unlikely; Blair winds her arms around his neck and presses close, and thinks Dan is an idiot but she must be an idiot too.
They have dinner with Nate sometime later, Dan feeling bad about not taking the time to tell him before. Nate keeps looking between them like he can't fathom seeing them share the same space.
"I don't get it, though," Nate says. "Since when?"
Dan glances at her with that quiet fond look of his, which is the main reason she puts up with him. It's something that she can never quite understand – that Dan, who has consistently experienced her at her worst, looks at her sometimes like he's never seen a thing like her.
"I don't know," Dan says. "It just came up kind of suddenly."
Blair wonders if that's true for Dan, or just something he said to make their relationship more palatable to Nate. She wonders how he can think it was sudden when he's been sneaking up on her for years without her ever realizing.
Dan/Blair.
11853 words. R. S4 AU, from 4x18 onward.
Summary: Blair never thought the person she wanted would be Dan Humphrey.
Part One
In the weeks following the blast, Blair has heard nothing from Chuck. This is worrying.
She refuses to go on Gossip Girl and see what he's up to, refuses to give in to her own curiosity. She and Chuck are not together. They are not going to be together, at least not now.
(Sometimes when she's looking at Dan – moments when he's not paying attention to her, reading or cooking, something – and his brow's got that little furrow of concentration, she thinks maybe not ever.)
Serena is still avoiding her too and for all Blair's posturing about making it okay again, she has no idea how to do so. It's much easier to hide out at Dan's, ignoring Serena right back.
"Try talking to her again," Dan urges.
But Blair doesn't feel like explaining herself to anyone. She's too busy learning how to explain herself to Dan. Loathe as she is to admit it, Blair's beginning to accept that Dan understands her, somehow. He blows past her bullshit as easily as she blows past his and she still finds it strange that Dan Humphrey can figure her out without even trying. This has its downsides, of course; Dan is able to recall and remark upon all of Blair's faults with startlingly clear-voiced accuracy. And, though he may or may not have certain virtues she's begun to recognize, Dan is still the most irritating person Blair has ever met. He's stubborn and pretentious, he has horrible taste in art and he never lets anything go. Blair could simply never take him anywhere, not with his hair and his inability to shut up.
They fight. They fight all the time.
At restaurants, museums, the park, anywhere – Blair's sense of appropriateness dissipates entirely around Dan and fights spark like words are kindling. Blair knows the location of each of his weaknesses and she prods them relentlessly, without mercy. His expression shutters closed and his arms cross and he says things like you're always testing me, can't you fucking relax? And Blair doesn't know what to do without tests and ultimatums, without the Empire State at the exact right time or rooftop I love you deadlines.
Blair hates when Dan tries to kiss her in public. It's like she as this momentary flash of horror: why is Dan Humphrey from Brooklyn touching her? Her brain only catches up a half-second after her flinch, by which point Dan's jaw has taken on that tight angry set. Blair will try to brush it off - I don't want Serena to see; why would you think you could kiss me when your hair looks like that; I don't enjoy being pawed in public, thank you - but the damage is done.
Privately everything is so much easier. He doesn't have to be Dan Humphrey from Brooklyn; he can just be her friend Dan with the nice shoulders who knows just how to kiss her neck.
He's always talking about telling his entire poorly bred family with a distasteful look on his face, as though Blair is this awful thing that needs to be warned about in advance. His father already thinks they're a bad idea; Lily has taken Serena's side, for once in her life and with her usual poor timing. Blair doesn't want to be talked up to upstate mothers who already have a bias against Upper East Side heiresses.
(Eleanor could not be reached for comment, not that Blair would tell her anyway.)
Still, when Dan is on the phone with Jenny and his eyes flicker to Blair during a telltale pause before he noticeably changes the subject – Blair is furious. She isn't so awful that Dan should hold her back like bad news.
(Except that she is that awful and they both know it, and that's what makes it worse.)
But at the same time, Blair can't remember ever experiencing this slow built up of affection over such a long time, Dan taking up more and more space in her thoughts until it was impossible to roust him out. Nate had been so immediate, playground love. Chuck was like getting diagnosed with a fatal illness, inescapable. But Dan -
Dan is another story entirely.
One morning she comes home from Dan's to find a package waiting on her bed, a long white box tied with pale blue ribbon. Inside, between sheets of tissue paper, is a seafoam green gown with slim, doubled straps and draping along the sides. Blair would know it anywhere. And she knows just where it came from, so she has Dorota send it right back.
That night she allows Dan to accompany her to a gala, though he's on strict orders to not refer to her as his "girlfriend," lest he wants physical harm to befall him.
Heretofore their relationship has played out primarily behind the closed doors of their respective homes, with the occasional field trip worked in. Blair accepts that they have a relationship of some kind, enjoys it even, but that doesn't mean she's willing to parade him around all of society like he's some great prize.
Even if sometimes, very rarely, she considers him to be a very, very small prize. A consolation prize. The plastic toy at the bottom of a box of cereal.
He does wear suits nicely, at least.
Dan kisses the palm of her hand before going off to circulate as per her orders, leaving her all fluttery and annoyed.
Then, as though on a timer, Chuck's voice behind her: "Well isn't that sweet."
Blair purses her lips so hard she's afraid she smudged her lipstick and says defiantly, "I think so."
Chuck steps up beside her. "Don't you think you're taking this particular revenge a little far?"
Blair rolls her eyes. "What are you talking about?"
"Your business with Brooklyn," Chuck says dryly.
"Right," Blair says. "My business with Dan. Not with you."
Chuck seems unperturbed. "For however long business with Dan lasts."
She turns to retort, glaring slightly, but pauses. There is a sharp familiar gleam in his eyes that she can remember seeing countless times – the morning after the limo, her cotillion, his father's wedding – ruining things with Marcus, ruining things at school, ruining her life. Blair knows that gleam, and it always ends badly for her.
"What did you do," she hisses.
At once a faux-innocent veneer slides over his expression. "Why, Blair," Chuck says, "I don't know what you mean."
"Yes you do, you always do," she snaps. "If you did something to hurt him –"
"Who?" he sneers. "Your low-rent boyfriend?"
"That is neither here nor there!" Blair takes a breath, then demands, "Tell me."
Chuck swallows a mouthful of scotch, shrugs, the picture of disinterest. Stall tactics. "I see you're not wearing the dress I sent."
Stall tactics. Distractions.
"I'm not in habit of wearing hideous moth-eaten gowns."
"It belonged to Princess Grace," he says quietly, looks at her to see how that lands.
"Even princesses make missteps," Blair says, undeterred. She crosses her arms. "What did you think was going to happen, Chuck? That you could buy me back with an old dress? I know everything's a business transaction to you, but that's not how real people work. You don't own me, as much as you may like to." Then, "Now tell me what you did so I can fix it before everything blows up in my face. Again."
"Just gave Humphrey a dose of reality," he says.
Exasperated, Blair sighs. When does Chuck stop exhausting her? She doesn't think he did anything that big, there wasn't time. Spread some lies, maybe; Blair should probably double-check the internship applications she and Dan have been sending out –
"What is that supposed to mean, Chuck?" She taps her foot, narrowed eyes sweeping the crowd for Dan. "We all know your version of reality is majorly skewed."
He touches her then, strokes his knuckles gently down the back of her arm. "I told him the truth, Blair."
Blair looks down at his hand. "Which is?"
"You and I are inevitable," Chuck says. "We both know Humphrey's just a way to waste time before we find our way back to each other."
Blair swallows, her heart feeling stuck in her throat. Chuck's fingers are curling lightly around her elbow but Blair is thinking about Dan kissing her hand even though she expressly told him no PDA, and she curls her fingers tight around the phantom pressure.
But before she can say anything, Chuck tugs her a half-step closer, and that's when she sees Dan – he's over Chuck's shoulder, sitting at the bar and nursing a drink. His eyes widen a little and his brow furrows and she realizes he must've been watching the entire time.
Oh, Humphrey, she thinks, all affection.
"Chuck," she says softly, "Stop touching me. I have to go undo the damage you've caused." If Chuck is taken aback, it doesn't register on his face – not that Blair bothers to check as she brushes past him.
Dan watches her approach, sitting up in his chair like he's about to be halfway out of it. She takes the seat beside him. "I'm sorry about him," she says.
Dan presses his lips together, says, "It's not your job to apologize for him."
"But I am sorry," she insists. "I don't want him doing what he does, planting his nonsense and ruining everything. What exactly did he say?"
"Same old bullshit. All the reasons I don't belong with you and he does. All the ways I'll disappoint you. All – all that." Dan looks down at his drink, swirling the remainder around but not finishing it, just pushing the glass back towards the bartender.
Blair breathes a sigh of relief that it was really only that. Chuck's slipping. "Oh. Good."
"Good?" Dan repeats disbelievingly. "Good?"
"Not good," Blair says hastily. "But, well, it could have been worse."
"He can't do this," Dan says. "He can't insinuate himself into our relationship like this. You're not with him anymore."
"He's not," Blair says, then, "And can we not call it a 'relationship,' Humphrey, really."
This is evidently the wrong thing to say, as Dan immediately pushes back from the counter and gets to his feet, looking very much over it. "I can't do this right now. I need air."
She blinks, a little surprised. "Okay…but you're coming back?"
"I don't know," he mutters. Then he turns, stalks off into the crowd.
In some disbelief, she watches him go. Chuck's not slipping, she thinks. One way or another he always gets what he wants.
Blair makes the rounds for a while, chatting to this or that boring trophy wife, until she's certain Dan isn't coming back. At which point she begins to swallow glass after glass of champagne, growing ever more annoyed with each empty flute. The nerve of that Brooklyn nobody. He's supposed to be smarter than this.
"Did you lose him?" Chuck asks, dry amusement, as she passes him. "I'd check under the skirt of my dear sister –"
"Bite me, Bass," she snaps, then points a warning finger. "Not an invitation."
Blair is a little drunk by the time she gets in the cab to Brooklyn. She fumes silently the whole way, arms crossed over her chest. How dare he. How dare he just walk out, how dare he talk to her like all this was her fault.
She slams the cab door shut and storms up the stairs, winded by the time she makes it to his floor and cursing walk-ups everywhere. She knocks furiously, relentlessly, until the door opens under her hand.
"What's your problem?" Dan says. He's made himself comfortable, tie and jacket gone, and his shirtsleeves are rolled up, top buttons undone. He looks unfairly good.
But no – she's not here for that.
"My problem? Please tell me this is one of your unfunny jokes, because on no earth am I the one with the problem."
Dan looks at her. Then, "You're drunk."
"You're an ass," she retorts.
Dan rolls his eyes, but stands aside to let her in. She's sure to knock roughly into his shoulder anyway. Once inside, she drops her purse unceremoniously and puts her hands on her hips, ready for the fight that's inevitably coming.
"It is not my fault that Chuck took it upon himself to mess with you," she says.
Dan sighs. "I know that. I don't want to talk about him."
"Too bad," Blair says. "I have to talk about him because he keeps doing things like this. I can't do anything about it except ignore him, but you at least don't have to believe the nonsense he says."
"I don't," Dan says. "This isn't about Chuck. Not everything is about him."
"Then what is wrong with you?" she demands.
"I don't know, Blair. You're not my girlfriend so I don't know why you care."
Blair frowns at that. "So that's what this is about."
He's got that annoyed look on his face that she's become familiar with, different than the eye-rolling derision from before they were friends. This runs deeper, somehow. "Do you want to be with me or not?"
Blair purses her lips. "What kind of a question is that?"
"I have to fight with you for forty minutes to get you to go out in public with me," Dan says. "You flinch when I try to kiss you. You refuse to even let me call you my friend half the time. So if you don't want to be with me, then – then don't."
"I don't know why we have to label everything," she mutters. "It's not like you're all that keen either."
Dan raises his eyebrows. "I haven't hidden how I feel about you. I never have."
"Really?" Blair raises her eyebrows right back. "So you've told your sister all about us, then?"
He drops his gaze, abashed. "That's different. That's –"
"You're ashamed of me," Blair says.
And his eyes snap right back to hers. "Don't be crazy."
"I did run her out of town. It's probably awkward to call her up and say –" She tries to mock his voice, low and sarcastic, "Sorry, Jen, I've fallen in love with the girl who tried to ruin your life for three years running."
Dan presses his lips together. "I never said I was in love with you."
Blair rolls her eyes. "Fine. You're not."
"I'm not," he says.
"I know," Blair snaps.
"Anyway," Dan says, "If anyone's ashamed of anyone, it's you ashamed of me."
Blair gives him an unimpressed look. "Of course I'm ashamed of you, you're Dan Humphrey."
"Then break up with me!" he says. "Or non-break up with me, since we're not together. Go be with Chuck. Run your empire together."
She bristles at the word empire, glaring at him. "If I wanted that, Humphrey –" She falters; that is what she's supposed to want, isn't it?
"If you wanted that?"
And Blair looks at him, really looks at him again like she did the night he came to the photoshoot. Looks at the tense and stiff set of his shoulders, clenched jaw belied by the apprehension in his eyes.
"If I wanted that I'd have it," Blair says, more softly than she means to. She remembers being tucked against him in bed, promising that she was just as serious about this as he was. Only neither of them has done a very good job of showing it. "I – I like this. Us." She clears her throat a little and licks her lips, tasting YSL. "You'd be too much trouble to keep around if I didn't."
Dan ducks his head. "You sure it's not too much trouble anyway?"
She blinks. "What?"
"Serena…" he says slowly, gaze still averted. "Chuck. Jenny. My family isn't thrilled about you, and I'm pretty sure your mom still thinks I'm a cater waiter. We fight constantly. You have unimaginably bad taste in art –"
Her anger flares again and she gives him a little, furious shove. "You're such an idiot," she hisses. "I don't know how I let myself get involved with such an idiot."
"Hey, I'm only stating the facts –"
"The facts are my best friend isn't speaking to me because of you!" Blair says. "And I let myself be publicly embarrassed because of you more than once! And all for what, Humphrey? For you to lose your nerve as soon as you remembered I have ex-boyfriends?"
"This is not about Chuck," he says again, "It's about me still being an embarrassment to you, despite everything –"
"Oh, despite what?" she scoffs. "I'm giving up a lot more for you than you are for me."
"Don't do me any favors," he says sharply. "If I'm not worth it, why bother?"
Blair presses her lips together tightly, angry and frustrated and hating him a little, right then. "I don't want to break up with you, okay?" she says, a furious admission. "I like being with you, Humphrey, and even though you're the stupidest person I've ever met and even though I despise you, I've become rather accustomed to you and – and I would be upset if I didn't have you. Alright? Are you satisfied? Have I humiliated myself enough?"
Dan frowns, brow furrowed, confused. "Why is that humiliating?"
"Because you obviously think this is all too much trouble," she says. "Because I'm clearly just putting myself out here to get my heart broken again."
His expression turns a little more intent at that. "Get your heart broken?"
"Figure of speech," Blair says, uncomfortably.
Dan bites his lip. "Maybe I'd be upset too."
"Of course you would be," Blair retorts, "I'm a catch."
Dan rolls his eyes. "You're something, alright."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You're a snob," Dan tells her. "You're a snob and a brat and you seem to operate almost entirely on this kind of ass-backwards pseudo-logic –"
"Don't hold back, Humphrey –"
"And you need to seriously learn how to relax –"
"Are you done?"
"And," he continues, giving her a pointed look, "Somehow, against all sense, none of that is sending me running for the hills."
Yet, she thinks. "Do you want a congratulations for sticking it out, Humphrey?"
"No," he says, annoyed, "I want to be your boyfriend. For real. None of this one step forward, two steps back bullshit."
Blair crosses her arms, uncrosses them. "I suppose that could be…arranged."
He arches an eyebrow. "Could it?"
Blair looks at him, earnest under the sarcasm, and there's a strange kind of lurching feeling in her chest. She'd spent so much time and energy trying to wish these feelings away but that's really the last thing she wants. "Yes. In spite of myself – and, honestly, many times in spite of you – I may…love you. I mean, I didn't want to. I kept trying to make it go away, but," Blair shrugs delicately, "how do you kill a feeling?"
"You're so romantic," Dan tells her.
Blair gives his arm a smack for good measure. "You're still an idiot."
"Are you staying over, or what?"
"No," Blair mutters, grabbing her bag. She's already put too much out there, and she can't stand looking at him for much longer. "I'm still mad at you. I don't want to see you at all. But tomorrow I want to have brunch, uptown."
"Fine," Dan says, with another of those impossibly irritating eye-rolls. "Blair?"
She's at the door, and doesn't turn. "What?"
"I might, kind of…" Dan clears his throat. "Love you, also. Sort of."
She bites her lower lip hard to keep all emotion from her face – not that he could see anyway – and blinks rapidly a few times. "I know that," she says. "I told you, I'm a catch."
Then she's gone.
Blair is surprised to find Serena at home when she gets there. Serena has been working carefully around Blair's schedule, always out when Blair's home or staying at Lily's if Blair doesn't spend the night at Dan's. But she's home now, sitting on the chaise in the living room with her legs tucked under her and her computer open to what sounds like the false chatter of reality tv.
Blair feels a rush that's half-nervous, half-grateful. "Hi," she hazards softly, "I didn't think you'd be home."
Serena glances up, startled, and shuts the laptop. "Oh. I thought you were with Dan." She pauses. "Or Chuck? I saw you getting cozy at the gala and, really, I can't keep up with you these days when it comes to boyfriends."
Blair bites back a retort. "I'm supposed to be the bitch," she says. "It doesn't look as good on you."
Serena doesn't say anything.
Blair sighs. "I would never do anything to hurt you."
Serena snorts. "Too late."
Blair feels awkward, which she hates feeling, and uncomfortable, which is an absurd thing to feel in one's own home. But Serena hasn't left yet, and that's something. Quietly, Blair asks, "How many boys are we going to fight over?"
The line of Serena's mouth tightens. "This isn't about that. This is about you lying to me."
"I didn't lie, I withheld," Blair says, exasperation sparking. "And don't act like you've never lied before. I didn't want to hurt you, I wasn't doing it maliciously." Blair makes a sound like a laugh, only it's devoid of humor. "For once."
Serena doesn't respond again and, frustrated, Blair crosses her arms.
"I really like him, S," she says, muses, "He gets me, in a strange way. He's unbelievably infuriating but there you have it. And –" Here she grows more hesitant. "And I know it might be hard for you to be happy for us, but can't you try?"
"It's just…" Serena looks purposefully at anything but Blair – her manicure, her rings, the pattern of the throw pillows. "He's Dan," she says. "You hate Dan. Only now, out of nowhere, you don't. And you just didn't speak to me for weeks –"
"You weren't here to speak to!" Blair exclaims.
"You weren't either," Serena says pointedly.
Blair looks down, eyes on the straps of her shoes and not Serena's face. "Do you hate me?"
Serena sighs. "I could never hate you, B."
"So you forgive me?" Blair says immediately, and is somewhat rewarded when Serena stifles a laugh.
"This isn't going to be…easy for me," Serena says, adds wryly, "If we made up after you sabotaged my college chances twice with lies about my former drug addictions, then I can't really hate you for this."
"Sorry about that," Blair mumbles.
"I don't want to get in the way, if you're happy," Serena continues. "But it is…hard for me. He's…Dan."
Blair knows that tone, nostalgic and halfway wistful for something that's gone; Blair remembers sitting on the steps of the Met while Serena said how nice Dan was, how funny, and Blair only scoffed. And now here she is, ready to protest the same things – he's funny even if Blair will never let him know it, sweet in a way that makes her stomach flip over, knows her so well, too well.
"I know," Blair murmurs. She remembers Serena dating Nate too, and how even though she wasn't supposed to be jealous anymore, she was, because Nate belonged to her. Except people don't belong to people; that was one lesson Blair should have learned a long time ago. "We really…fit, S."
Serena's silent a moment, looking at her. "Then I guess you're dating Dan," she says.
"Yes," Blair says. "Is it…is it going to be okay, that I am?"
Serena half-shrugs, but shifts over so Blair can sit beside her. "I guess we'll see."
"That's a lot of guessing," Blair says, but she sits. Serena arranges her blanket over Blair's legs and opens the laptop again.
"I can't read the future," she says.
Blair peers at the screen. "Well, I can read the future far enough to say that we will not be watching any Real Housewives in the next ten minutes."
Serena smiles. "A little lowbrow is good for you," she says, nudging Blair.
"Humphrey is not lowbrow, if that's what you're insinuating," Blair sniffs, then, "Ugh, and now I'm defending him. Is this what associating with Brooklynites does to a girl?"
Serena only smiles again. Blair can see she's trying, already, so she slips her arm through Serena's and rests her head on Serena's shoulder, feels the answering weight of Serena leaning against her.
God, Blair's become such a sap.
Blair lets herself into Dan's with the key beneath the mat, pocketing it once she's closed the door behind her. "Humphrey?" she calls, when he is not immediately apparent. She frowns. She knows he doesn't have class on Fridays.
But then there he is, stepping out of the back room, idly turning his phone over in his hands. "Hey," he says.
"I see you're not somehow injured," Blair says, raising an eyebrow, "So I can't quite understand why you weren't returning my texts."
"Does being your boyfriend mean that I have to deal with being nagged all the time now?"
"Yes," she says.
Dan rolls his eyes but he's smiling a little. "So. Jenny's not speaking to me."
Surprised but trying not to show it, Blair shifts her weight a little, heel to heel. "Why?"
"Well… I called her…" Dan sets the phone down and puts his hands in his pockets, stepping closer. "And I said I accidentally fell in love with this crazy girl that's been messing with her life for like three years. She wasn't pleased. But I think she'll come around. She usually does."
"Oh," Blair says.
"Yeah." Dan steps closer still. She hasn't seen them since that brunch after their fight (if it can even be called a fight, ultimately), and they'd been quiet and flustered with each other the whole time. "I think the shock's what gotten to her more than anything else."
"Really." Blair puts her bag aside, moving closer too. Dan reaches out for the fastenings of her jacket, undoing them one by one before pushing it off her shoulders.
"Yeah," he says again, quietly. "How about you?"
Blair lets her fingers catch in his sleeves before he can move too far. "I wouldn't expect a group picnic or anything any time soon. But not badly."
He half-smiles, nods. "I'm not really the picnic type."
"Good." Blair tightens her grip, tugging slightly. She tilts her face up. "Me either."
Dan's smile widens slightly and Blair is just thinking how stupidly noble he must think he is for calling his stupid sister when he leans down to kiss her. It's the first time they've kissed in maybe a week, which seems both ridiculous and unlikely; Blair winds her arms around his neck and presses close, and thinks Dan is an idiot but she must be an idiot too.
They have dinner with Nate sometime later, Dan feeling bad about not taking the time to tell him before. Nate keeps looking between them like he can't fathom seeing them share the same space.
"I don't get it, though," Nate says. "Since when?"
Dan glances at her with that quiet fond look of his, which is the main reason she puts up with him. It's something that she can never quite understand – that Dan, who has consistently experienced her at her worst, looks at her sometimes like he's never seen a thing like her.
"I don't know," Dan says. "It just came up kind of suddenly."
Blair wonders if that's true for Dan, or just something he said to make their relationship more palatable to Nate. She wonders how he can think it was sudden when he's been sneaking up on her for years without her ever realizing.