with the cruelest of intentions
Blair, Serena, Dan, Jenny. Some others, multi-pairing.
Based on Cruel Intentions. R. 20k words.
W: nothing you don't see in the movie, but just in case: underage sex, consent shadiness, general terrible humans.
Summary: Incestuous stepsisters Blair and Serena set out to seduce poor, innocent Dan Humphrey.
first part
previous part
Serena wakes up in a shitty mood. Jenny Humphrey is curled up on one side of her and Parker Smythe is on the other and Serena has no memory of how either of them got there, so it's business as usual, albeit business she doesn't really look forward to. It gives Serena a bad feeling, worse than that pit-of-the-stomach queasiness that comes along with her hangovers; she's been good about hiding how bad she is, and now she's gone and blown it.
She obviously lost track of Dan at some point last night – Serena lost track of a lot last night, it seems. She reaches over Jenny to grab her phone and check Gossip Girl, breathing a brief sigh of relief when the only pictures are of her drunkenly dancing. That's okay, charming even; it wouldn’t do for roaming hands or lips to be caught on camera considering she's close to convincing Dan that all of that is behind her.
But that's not the only thing that's bothering Serena. It's something like trepidation, and it grows as she crawls out of bed and pulls on a t-shirt and cutoffs, grows as she crosses the hall to Blair's door. Grows as she hears unmistakable moaning behind it, Blair's high and rising, Dan's soft and muffled.
Fucking bitch. Serena wants to laugh a little, almost. She grasps the door handle without thinking much aside from getting in there, calling out Blair or maybe just crawling in with them, that would certainly blow Dan's mind –
But upon opening the door, she sees that the boy in Blair's bed isn't Dan after all.
Then Serena does start laughing, hand covering her mouth but doing little to stifle her. It's partially Blair's scandalized expression and partially that Nate doesn't even notice at first, his eyes tightly shut as he moans away. It's not until Blair scrambles off him, sniping, "Serena, can't you knock?" that Nate realizes someone else is in the room, and his comically shocked expression – wide eyes, open mouth, and all – sends Serena into a fresh round of cackling.
"Finally got it done, huh?" Serena says.
Blair just glares harder, but Nate looks a little sheepish then. He reaches for his boxers and hustles into them before slipping out of bed. "Uh, I should probably –" he says with an uneasy glance between them, grabbing his clothes. "That was really fun, though, until…" He trails off, perhaps aware that neither of them is really listening to him, and kisses Blair on the cheek before turning to leave.
Then he says, "This is just between us, right?"
Blair shifts her gaze off Serena and her expression alters totally, a cheerful smile gracing her lips. "Of course, sweetie," she says. "I'll call you later."
Nate seems relieved. He gives them both a final awkward nod before exiting.
Blair has the sheet tucked up under her arms and she sweeps it up around her like a wrap as she gets up. "Not I'm going to be all backed up," she complains. "Thanks a lot."
"What the fuck was that?" Serena asks good-naturedly, since she's still laughing a little. "Since when is Nate on your radar anymore?"
"He's never been off it," Blair says, disappearing into her closet. Her voice is even-toned and betrays nothing. It might be sarcasm; with Blair it can be hard to tell. She reappears in a lush white bathrobe. "You might say that was always the plan."
Serena's brow quirks. "And that means…?"
"What, did you think I was going to let Jenny Humphrey run off with all my exes?" Blair inquires incredulously. "I wanted her to get close enough to having everything that it would really sting when I took it all away."
"Because you can just do that," Serena muses. "Take it all away."
"Can't I?" Blair says. "Gossip Girl's been holding back, but one word from me and every last little tidbit on Little J is out for everyone to read. She'll be socially ruined before she even started." Blair punctuates that with a fake little pout. "How sad. Marcus won't want her anymore and neither will Nate, not that it matters now that he has me again. It's over for her." Blair pauses, and smiles. "She's just like you."
"Just like me?" Serena repeats, gaze hardening.
"Just like you," Blair reiterates. "A slut. A toy. A thing people like to play with and dispose of, because it gets boring so fast."
Serena tries to keep her voice as empty as Blair does but she can't – it comes out rough and hard and hurt even though she wants to disguise it. "That's all I am to you?"
"Mm. Though admittedly I get more use out of you than most people do." She takes a seat at her vanity, her back to Serena, utterly careless. "Just a game, like Dan Humphrey's just a game. But I'm bored of it now with both of you. You're too boring to fuck, or fuck with."
Serena's throat contracts in a swallow. "You think I don't know you by now? You're just bitter because you suck at this, you can't get Dan to pay attention to you because you're such an uptight bitch about everything – that's why boys never go for you unless I set you up, no one wants to deal with –"
Blair laughs, a brittle sound. "Oh, please," she says. "You think he actually likes you, and not just the fact that you're always losing your clothes around him? He'd never be with someone like you – he knows everyone else has. Plus you're really just not smart enough." Her eyes meet Serena's in the mirror. "And did you honestly think Dan Humphrey was going to fuck you after you took advantage of his baby sister?"
Serena presses her lips together. "You don't get to think you're better than me," she says. "Maybe I started first, but you're just as bad as me, maybe worse. At least I'm not a coward. I'm not afraid of what people say about me. So I'm a big slut – so what? I'm not doing anything that everyone else isn't doing, I'm just not hiding it."
"The rules are different for the Serena van der Woodsens of the world, but I'm a Waldorf," Blair says, turning back around to face her. Anger has brought the first crack to her façade. "People expect you to party and be wild and sleep with whoever you want. You shot your reputation to hell a long time ago, it doesn't matter what you do. Do you think I relish the fact that I have to act like Mary Sunshine twenty-four seven so I can be considered a lady? I'm the Marcia fucking Brady of the Upper East Side and sometimes I want to kill myself. But I do what I have to do to get what I want."
The silence seems to vibrate after that. Then Serena says, low and easy, "You know everyone hates you? Really. Everyone knows you're a two-faced bitch. Nobody likes you, nobody trusts you, and they can't wait to see you fall."
"Is that a threat?"
"Just the facts," Serena says with a shrug. "I think I'm gonna go find Dan." She heads out the door without so much as a backwards glance, though she can feel Blair's eyes on her. She knows this isn't over, if it ever even could be; she knows that Blair lashes out when she's cornered or hurt, and Serena might as well have just fired a shot, or started a war.
Serena and Dan sit on her bedroom floor with half the contents of the liquor cabinet, plus some other goodies they'd gone into town to get. Serena holds maraschino cherries between her teeth and tries to teach him how to make cocktails, smiles when the taste of whiskey makes him wince.
"I'm sorry you and your sister are fighting," he says.
Serena shrugs. "You know Blair," she says. "She can be really hard to get along with, secretly sad or not."
Dan ducks his head with a wry smile. "You guys are really close, though, aren't you?"
"Close as two sisters could be," Serena says, then tops off his glass. "C'mon, I'm here to teach you to drink and you've got several years of experience to catch up on."
Dan gets drunk startlingly fast and he makes a real cute drunk, happy where she thought he'd be maudlin. His eyes are bright and he grins easily, face flushed. Serena just gets tipsy enough to press her fingertips against his cheeks and kiss him on the forehead. "You're adorable," she tells him.
"You're not too bad yourself," Dan says. His eyes fall to her mouth in an unconscious way she's seen plenty of times before, though it never fails to please her.
"Oh no?" They're leaning up against her footboard, initially side-to-side but now halfway facing each other, shoulders pressed and heads tilted against the upholstered bedframe. Serena lets her hand rest on his neck, fiddling with his collar. "Then why are you always running away?"
He sighs softly but negates it with a slight smile. "Apparently I'm an uptight, patronizing virgin," he says. "That's what I hear, anyway."
"Being a virgin just means you haven't had sex yet." Her fingers traipse over the arch of his cheekbone. "It's a pretty easy fix."
Dan turns his face away from her a little. "It's embarrassing," he says.
"What is?" Serena murmurs.
"Waiting," he says – and something about the way he says it, his inflection and the roll of his eyes, reminds her suddenly of Blair. "Wanting to wait. I mean…. What am I really waiting for?"
"Love, I thought," she says gently.
"I'm starting to see how ridiculous that is," he says.
It's strange, because the entire point of getting involved with him was his newness, his morality, his hard and fast rules in a world where most people didn't bother with any. To hear him say something like that ought to make her happy because the whole point is to break down his barriers but instead it's a little niggling disappointment in the back of Serena's mind. She wants him to believe in love. She wants him to hold onto all that because if he can't, then probably no one can.
Before she can wrangle her ineloquent tongue to get any of those words out, Dan tilts forward and presses his mouth to hers. It's the first kiss he ever initiated. It's what she was waiting for, but it feels oddly like a letdown.
But still she wraps her arms around him, kisses back. Dan presses closer until she tips backwards, hand reaching out for purchase and knocking over bottles. They both laugh a little, sheepish, and right them before clambering up onto her bed, kissing much more insistently. Dan's hands slip under the hem of her t-shirt as hers curl in his hair, his touch warm and uncertain. Serena presses quick little kisses to his mouth before pulling back briefly to tug her shirt over her head and then reaching for his too.
There's a breathless pause. Instead of kissing her again, Dan's just looking at her, something soft and indecipherable in his expression. He brushes her hair back off her shoulders in a purposeful way, almost seeming to arrange it gently around her. His thumb brushes over her cheek before his fingers skate down the length of her neck, trace her collarbone, follow the upward curve of her breast. But the entire time he's looking at her. He's looking her in the eye.
"You're so beautiful," he says, not in the way guys usually do, but like she's something remarkable. Like there is something particular and special in her beauty. "I'm happy I'm here with you."
He gives her a small smile before leaning in to kiss her, only Serena flinches involuntarily, her stomach twisting. He pulls back, worry creasing his forehead. "What? Did I do something wrong?"
"No, no, it's –" Serena blinks suddenly, averting her gaze. "I don't know, I… Maybe we shouldn't do this."
She doesn't know what she expects from him, but agreement isn't it. "You're right…" he says, just a touch of regret in his voice. "I'm a little drunk, and… I don't think it's fair, to be with you if –"
He breaks off, so she asks quietly, "If what?"
"If I have…feelings…for someone else too," he says apologetically. "It's shitty of me to do. I'm sorry."
"That's okay," Serena says even though it's anything but. "Um, can we just… Don't go?" She didn't mean for it to come out as a question.
"Of course," he says with that same small smile, moving close enough for her to put her head on his shoulder, her arm draped over his chest. She blinks her eyes dry and presses close to his warmth, telling herself that being jealous is stupid, telling herself she has time with him now that Blair doesn't want him anymore.
Serena tells herself a lot of things but she never really believes them.
It's late, the night before their return to the city, and Blair is spending it sulking in her room. She's already packed so she's spending the last hour before bed tucked in her window seat and writing in her diary, spilling out all the things she can't normally say. It's hot out but in the worst way, sticky and muggy, and rain pelts the windows relentlessly. The last time she spoke to Nate, he told her that she had been fun, that all he was looking for was fun, didn't she have a good time too? He asked to hang out once they were back in the city. Blair knew all of it was boyspeak for wanting to fuck her and still get to romance a skinny Brooklyn social climber.
There's a knock on the door and for a moment she thinks it might be Serena, only Serena doesn't ever knock. It could be Jenny. Or…
"Come in," Blair calls, straightening a little. She closes the diary and tucks it amongst the pillows, out of sight. And of course when the door opens it's Dan, looking both self-conscious and contrite. "What do you want?"
He makes a face at her. "To talk to you, but I can see that'll be as difficult as always."
Blair rolls her eyes and reaches for her cigarette case. She plucks a red one out because the color suits her mood, but it goes nicely with her black slip too. She doesn't offer him any, both to be a bitch and because the kind of cigarette that would look best between his lips would be a white one – straightforward, classic, traditional. "What is it you want to talk about?"
"You're mad at me," he says.
"No I'm not," Blair disagrees. "I just don't like you, and therefore am unpleasant in your company."
He does that dry little laugh that he does when she's mean to him, which just annoys her more. "Okay, but I think there's a little more to it than that."
"What difference does it make?" Blair asks dismissively, taking a drag. "The outcome's the same. Why don't you go find Serena, Brooklyn, since the two of you are so terribly chummy?"
This seems to bother him, because he makes an irritated sound and strides forward to sit beside her. Blair inches away pointedly. Dan is undeterred. "Stop telling me to go find Serena," he says. "You wanted me to kiss you when you were drunk. I know you're upset because I didn't."
"Awfully high opinion of yourself."
"I just didn't want it to happen that way," Dan says. "I wanted it to be, well – more special than that."
Blair bites down on the inside of her lip, unwilling to show any kind of reaction to the words. "Whatever are you on about, Humphrey?"
"Stop being such a bitch," he says bluntly. He takes the cigarette from her fingers without asking and puts it to his mouth like he needs it to steel himself. "I can't stop thinking about you, I've tried and I can't, despite myself I – I think about you all the time." A pause, then, "You like me. I know you do."
She looks at him, voice softening deceptively when she says, "Do you think I'm the kind of girl who'd go after my sister's boyfriend?"
"I'm not her boyfriend," Dan says. "Nothing's ha– Well. In the interest of full disclosure, something did happen, but it was only –"
"You don't have to tell me," she says, cutting him off. Whatever had begun to loom in her when he started talking has sunk to the bottom of her stomach. "I don't need to hear it."
So Serena had won after all, not that that was a surprise, ultimately. Serena often wins the things Blair wants the most. That's just how it is.
"It doesn't change how I feel about you," he says.
It's oddly upsetting that even Dan Humphrey is guilty of boyspeak. She'd entertained thoughts that maybe he wasn't quite like all the others, who were always after more than one girl at once, wanting to have their cake and eat it too. Romancing one and fucking another. Wasn't that always how it went?
"You're terrible at trying to be friends with girls," she says, much more subdued now, as she takes the cigarette back.
"I can't keep my feelings bottled up," he says. "You can tell me I'm crazy if you want. You can tell me to fuck off. But I know there's something here, whether you want to admit it or not." He waits a moment but Blair offers nothing, does not even look at him. "Am I wrong?"
The moment stretches quietly, the music Blair put on earlier gratefully filling the silence. She stubs the cigarette out in a cut-glass ashtray. "You're not," she murmurs. The room feels hushed and isolated and there is something very safe about Dan, so the honesty slips out. All bets are off now. "But I can't do this."
"Because of Serena? I promise I –"
"Because I don't trust myself with you," she interrupts.
Dan frowns. "I don't understand."
"I know you don't," Blair says. She gets up, putting some distance between them, as reluctant to explain herself as she was to admit anything in the first place. She knows giving in to Dan will require giving something up, a part of herself that's ugly but nevertheless integral, and to give it up she'll have to face it, admit her own ugliness. Giving in to wanting Dan is dangerous. He is the opposite of everything she knows, and she can't have both at once. She knows she can't. She'll just end up dragging him down with her.
He doesn't press her further, but she hears him stand and come up behind her, hands resting on her arms. Blair leans back against his chest, thinking as she does it what a stupid thing it is to do. He presses a kiss into her hair and then releases her entirely, stepping back. "Okay," he says unenthusiastically. "I don't have to understand it, or like it. If you don't want to, you don't want to. I respect that."
There's a little hysterical laugh caught in Blair's throat and to keep it from exploding out of her, she turns and kisses him on the mouth, feeling him start in surprise. "What I want," she says firmly, still standing so close to him, "is for you to kiss me. Can you manage that?"
"I can try," Dan says, and immediately his arms go around her, gathering her to his chest as he kisses her. It's another stupid thing that she really shouldn't do but abruptly she is aware of how much she wants him, and how she can feel it in her entire body, this desire for him.
She supposes there's something to be said for the appeal of good boys.
Dan's nerves are clear in the way he touches her, hands never settling for long – on her back at first, then her waist, then both hands on her cheeks, cupping her face as they kiss. It's sweet that even after sleeping with Serena he'd still be so uncertain. She curls her fingers around his and puts his hands on her hips, low enough that he can take it as an invitation.
"I'm sorry," he says, a little sheepishly, "I don't know what to do."
"It's okay," Blair says, giving him another light kiss. "I'll show you."
Blair unbuttons his shirt, pressing kisses along his chest as it slips from his shoulders. Belt and jeans follow, her mouth trailing over his hipbones. Then she slides the straps of her slip down and allows him to tug it so it falls to the floor, leaving the two of them in their underwear, bare chest to bare chest, Dan's cheeks pink and lips parted as he looks at her.
"I know I'm not –" Blair starts, suddenly awkward herself. "I mean, compared to –"
But Dan covers her mouth in a kiss that deepens until they're falling back onto the bed and he says, "You're perfect," like it's the easiest thing in the world to say. It's untrue enough to be laughable, but she doesn't feel like laughing.
His first time with Serena must've been a real mess because his hesitancy shows in his every move. Blair has to put his hand between her legs, then press so his fingers slip between her folds, has to position them right against her clit. But even so, she doesn't mind, doesn't think any less of him. She likes being handled with such care. She loves the way Dan checks every few seconds if she likes something, if he's doing everything right. She loves the tenderness of his mouth against her skin, the earnestness in his expression.
It's brief but beautiful, the way Dan comes apart – the trembling in his arms and shoulders, teeth sinking into his lower lip, brow furrowed. "I'm sorry," he says immediately after, but Blair doesn't mind, "I couldn't help it –"
"You can make it up to me," she says, tipping him over onto his back as she arches an eyebrow, a genuine smile on her lips. She positions herself with her cunt over his mouth and Dan gets the picture pretty quickly, though he still needs a good deal of direction.
It's getting light out by the time they're even halfway done with each other and Blair is exhausted and thrilled, worries blunted by however many orgasms she'd had. Catching her breath, laughing, she pushes Dan away when his hand slides between her legs again, much bolder now than he was a few hours ago.
"I think I love you," he says, and she doesn't take it a bit seriously, though his smile is dazed and happy.
"You're ridiculous," she tells him fondly, letting him tug her closer. She trails her fingers over his chest, smoothes his rumpled hair. She admits, "I don't want to go back to the city."
"So let's stay," he says. "The summer isn't really over yet. We have some time before school."
She wants to give in but it would only be postponing the inevitable. She doesn't know how bad it's going to be yet; she only knows that everything good comes with a price tag attached, and she's not sure even she has enough to pay for choosing Dan. He doesn't come from the right family or have enough money. He's no one, socially speaking. He was branded by Serena long before he was even a consideration for Blair, and that's not a mark that will wash off easily.
And all that says nothing about Blair herself, the kind of person she is. Dan doesn't know half her past because it's not as neatly categorized on the internet as Serena's, and he's going to be in for a world of disappointment. She wishes she could stay right here in this early summer morning with Dan looking at her like a few good orgasms means it must be love.
Sadness is settling in the closer they get to reality. Blair kisses him. "You should make sure you have everything packed," she says. "We're leaving soon."
She kisses him again at the door, his clothes in shambles and her just in the sheet. Dan makes her laugh because he won't stop kissing her until she gives him a playful shove, and even then he comes back for one more. She allows herself to watch him walk back down the hall and she's so busy drinking in the sight of him that she doesn't notice Serena at all, doesn't even register Serena stepping out of Jenny's room just in time to see everything.
The first thing Blair does back in Manhattan is oversee the unpacking of her luggage, and she's interrupted every ten minutes or so texting Dan. Each little message brings a smile to her lips that she fails to suppress. She shouldn't be allowing this silliness to continue, she shouldn't feel good about it; she should cut her ties and move on to hooking Nate, or someone similar. She should let this go before it comes back to bite her.
She's replying to one of his dumb jokes with a halfhearted criticism when she realizes that Serena is leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. "Have you been taking lessons in lurking?" Blair says snidely. "How long have you been standing there?"
"You're not so observant lately," Serena notes in lieu of answering. "You must be feeling pretty good, considering."
Blair stiffens. "Considering?"
"Considering your victory."
Blair's eyes narrow as she stares at Serena uncomprehendingly, lips parting to ask what that's supposed to mean. But something in Serena's tight expression sparks Blair's understanding, and she's momentarily overwhelmed by it – Dan had said something happened but not what, because Blair wouldn't let him say it, which means…which means he hadn't slept with Serena at all, it was only Blair. It's only been Blair. She doesn't have a name for the feeling that suffuses her because it's one she gave up a long time ago but there is something certain and warm to it. Blair smiles, fingertips coming up to touch her lips. It had only been her. He waited for her.
"You love him," Serena accuses, voice wavering with emotion. Serena is unable to hide anything and her face betrays how hurt she is. "You love him and you don't love me anymore."
"That's not true," Blair says sharply. "You're my sister. What is you is me. All that bullshit I said – we were just fighting."
But Serena shakes her head. "No," she says. "No, you should see your face. When he came out of your room –" She presses her lips together. "You used to look at Nate like that when we were kids. Remember how that ended?"
Blair stares at her. "Are you really so pathetically jealous?"
Ignoring that, Serena continues, "People don't change, you know. Especially not us. You're just going to end up disappointing him like everyone else. He'll use you and leave you for someone good and pure and not fucked up."
"No such thing," Blair says but the words are like ashes in her mouth. The truth is everyone she ever got close to did break under her relentless pressure. They all gave her up for simpler partners, less complicated girls, less cruel ones. "Dan isn't like that, anyway."
Serena huffs a laugh, her arms still tightly crossed. "They're all like that," she says. "All those stupid boys are like that. The only person who never fucked you over is me and you don't even care."
"Oh please," Blair scoffs. "Like you've been some kind of knight errant. You steal things from me, remember – remember my mother's photoshoot and Kati's party last year and the Ivy mixer and –"
"And Nate," Serena says, voice low. "Or didn't you ever figure that one out?" When Blair remains silent, perhaps shocked into it, she adds, "We share everything, after all. Always have."
"You're deluded," Blair says, ignoring the little voice in her shrieking I knew it I always knew there was something. "In what world does that equal out to you being the only one to never screw me over? I suppose I'm sorry you feel cast aside, but I'm not going to be miserable just to give your self-esteem a boost."
Serena's expression is briefly and uncharacteristically unreadable. If Blair really tried, perhaps she could discern hesitation and indecisiveness but then Serena's frown deepens and all she's telegraphing is her pain.
"I never did it on purpose," Serena says. "Never." A pause, then, "Until now."
Genuine worry snakes down Blair's spine. "What did you do?"
Serena wets her lips, eyes downcast. "It seems Gossip Girl got ahold of some pages of your diary. Things about Jenny and Dan…and all the plans you had for them." She looks up, meeting Blair's gaze straight on. "You won," she says. "How does it feel?"
Dan isn't answering any of Blair's calls.
Dan isn't answering any of her calls and school has started back up again, so she gets to see him move silent and stone-faced through the crowds, ignoring the bullshit he's getting from everyone. They really like to quote Blair's diary at him, especially the parts about how he's "only a conquest, another little pawn" between her and Serena.
Jenny's been getting it pretty bad too, but she has Nate and the status that gives her.
And Blair, well. Blair has it worst of all.
It's a strange thing to be exposed to everyone for exactly what you are. Serena said everyone knew Blair was a two-faced bitch and maybe they did, but now they have it in black and white. No one has to pretend to put up with her anymore. Penelope has gleefully taken over with the girls at school and the entire student body follows their example in shunning Blair. She's greeted with sudden silence upon entering every classroom and followed by whispers down every hallway. The girls drop yogurt in her hair on the steps. She is called a slut and a bitch and a cunt and a liar.
It's ironic in its way. She always wanted to be the one everyone was talking about, and now she is.
"It was Serena who fucked your little girlfriend," Blair tried to tell Nate during the conversation in which he dumped her unceremoniously, again. "It was Serena who took her out and fucked her up. She's just bitter, she's just getting back at me."
Nate looked at her with surprisingly cool blue eyes, as though there had never been a time in his life when Blair meant anything. "Everyone knows it's you that pulls the strings," he said. "I mean, you did that with me too. Controlled me. You try to control everything. Couldn't take it after a while."
"I suppose that's why you slept with Serena, isn't it," Blair said, watching his expression. She'd swallowed that bit of information like medicine, sour-tasting but somehow expected – learning it had been Serena made everything make more sense, in retrospect. Blair had been hurt, but she had not been surprised.
He looked embarrassed for half a second but recovered very fast. "I didn't want you to find out," he said, as though that statement was of any value to her. "I just couldn't. You were too much."
Blair would rather die than attempt to approach Dan at school – on top of everything else, the girls keep harping on her about slumming it, fucking a nobody scholarship kid from Brooklyn. But it's not just that; she knows he'd rebuff her brutally if she tried to talk to him in public and it's another humiliation she can't face.
The journal entries Serena snapped photos of and sent off to Gossip Girl were all from the beginning of the summer, before Blair's feelings for Dan began to invade her private musings. She'd probably be more embarrassed if any of that sentimental nonsense had gotten out but at the same time she wants Dan to see that, to see that she's not just a cold, nasty bitch. She thinks of sending in her own tip, but then it slowly occurs to her that it would only seem like more manipulation. She knows the only thing that matters to Dan is honesty and so that's what she decides to give him: full disclosure, all of her worst moments, everything.
She takes a taxi to Brooklyn with a stack of three journals on her lap, identical powder blue books filled with neat writing. They cover years of her life. She held nothing back in private, between herself and those pages.
She takes a deep breath before knocking on his door, stomach twisting at the sound of his voice calling out, "Who is it?"
"Me," she says, then louder, "Blair." Silence greets that. She swallows, not having expected anything else. "I know you don't want to see me. And that's fine. I wouldn't want to see me either. But I – I have some things for you, I want…" She takes a breath, leaning against the door. "My life is a joke. I'm a horrible person. I like to rip people apart. I take joy in other people's misery. But… But I was happy with you. Even if it didn't last very long. You made me happy and it was terrifying to me. The idea of changing, it was –" Her voice falters. "Terrifying."
Silence reigns once again, for so long that Blair resigns herself to leaving the diaries before excusing herself from his life. But then the lock clicks and the door opens and there's Dan, thin serious face as solemn as ever.
"Please, take these," she says before he can speak, thrusting the books at him. "It's me, everything about me. I'm not going to lie to you, not anymore."
He accepts them, looking down at the blue covers for a moment. Then he looks back at her. "I always knew you were fucked up," he says. "I could probably get over all of that, forgive you for it, understand it. But I'll never ever forgive you for what you did to my sister and I never want to see you again."
And he shuts the door in her face.
Blair drifts home in a daze after that, feeling only a crystalline emptiness. There is nothing left inside her, bad or good.
She finds Serena in her room, on her bed. They haven't really spoken since the blast, outside of a couple shrieking arguments, and they've been carefully avoiding each other for the most part – as much as two people in the same house can. Serena looks familiar and inviting, with her hair a tangled mess and too-short skirt riding up as she curls her legs under herself.
"Hi," Serena says in a small voice.
Blair acknowledges her with a nod, drifting over to sit on the edge of the bed. She clears her throat a little and says, after a moment, "It's always you and me, isn't it?" though she doesn't sound particularly happy about it.
Serena inches closer and slides her arm around Blair. "Always," she says softly, her face so close, close enough to kiss.
Blair, Serena, Dan, Jenny. Some others, multi-pairing.
Based on Cruel Intentions. R. 20k words.
W: nothing you don't see in the movie, but just in case: underage sex, consent shadiness, general terrible humans.
Summary: Incestuous stepsisters Blair and Serena set out to seduce poor, innocent Dan Humphrey.
first part
previous part
Serena wakes up in a shitty mood. Jenny Humphrey is curled up on one side of her and Parker Smythe is on the other and Serena has no memory of how either of them got there, so it's business as usual, albeit business she doesn't really look forward to. It gives Serena a bad feeling, worse than that pit-of-the-stomach queasiness that comes along with her hangovers; she's been good about hiding how bad she is, and now she's gone and blown it.
She obviously lost track of Dan at some point last night – Serena lost track of a lot last night, it seems. She reaches over Jenny to grab her phone and check Gossip Girl, breathing a brief sigh of relief when the only pictures are of her drunkenly dancing. That's okay, charming even; it wouldn’t do for roaming hands or lips to be caught on camera considering she's close to convincing Dan that all of that is behind her.
But that's not the only thing that's bothering Serena. It's something like trepidation, and it grows as she crawls out of bed and pulls on a t-shirt and cutoffs, grows as she crosses the hall to Blair's door. Grows as she hears unmistakable moaning behind it, Blair's high and rising, Dan's soft and muffled.
Fucking bitch. Serena wants to laugh a little, almost. She grasps the door handle without thinking much aside from getting in there, calling out Blair or maybe just crawling in with them, that would certainly blow Dan's mind –
But upon opening the door, she sees that the boy in Blair's bed isn't Dan after all.
Then Serena does start laughing, hand covering her mouth but doing little to stifle her. It's partially Blair's scandalized expression and partially that Nate doesn't even notice at first, his eyes tightly shut as he moans away. It's not until Blair scrambles off him, sniping, "Serena, can't you knock?" that Nate realizes someone else is in the room, and his comically shocked expression – wide eyes, open mouth, and all – sends Serena into a fresh round of cackling.
"Finally got it done, huh?" Serena says.
Blair just glares harder, but Nate looks a little sheepish then. He reaches for his boxers and hustles into them before slipping out of bed. "Uh, I should probably –" he says with an uneasy glance between them, grabbing his clothes. "That was really fun, though, until…" He trails off, perhaps aware that neither of them is really listening to him, and kisses Blair on the cheek before turning to leave.
Then he says, "This is just between us, right?"
Blair shifts her gaze off Serena and her expression alters totally, a cheerful smile gracing her lips. "Of course, sweetie," she says. "I'll call you later."
Nate seems relieved. He gives them both a final awkward nod before exiting.
Blair has the sheet tucked up under her arms and she sweeps it up around her like a wrap as she gets up. "Not I'm going to be all backed up," she complains. "Thanks a lot."
"What the fuck was that?" Serena asks good-naturedly, since she's still laughing a little. "Since when is Nate on your radar anymore?"
"He's never been off it," Blair says, disappearing into her closet. Her voice is even-toned and betrays nothing. It might be sarcasm; with Blair it can be hard to tell. She reappears in a lush white bathrobe. "You might say that was always the plan."
Serena's brow quirks. "And that means…?"
"What, did you think I was going to let Jenny Humphrey run off with all my exes?" Blair inquires incredulously. "I wanted her to get close enough to having everything that it would really sting when I took it all away."
"Because you can just do that," Serena muses. "Take it all away."
"Can't I?" Blair says. "Gossip Girl's been holding back, but one word from me and every last little tidbit on Little J is out for everyone to read. She'll be socially ruined before she even started." Blair punctuates that with a fake little pout. "How sad. Marcus won't want her anymore and neither will Nate, not that it matters now that he has me again. It's over for her." Blair pauses, and smiles. "She's just like you."
"Just like me?" Serena repeats, gaze hardening.
"Just like you," Blair reiterates. "A slut. A toy. A thing people like to play with and dispose of, because it gets boring so fast."
Serena tries to keep her voice as empty as Blair does but she can't – it comes out rough and hard and hurt even though she wants to disguise it. "That's all I am to you?"
"Mm. Though admittedly I get more use out of you than most people do." She takes a seat at her vanity, her back to Serena, utterly careless. "Just a game, like Dan Humphrey's just a game. But I'm bored of it now with both of you. You're too boring to fuck, or fuck with."
Serena's throat contracts in a swallow. "You think I don't know you by now? You're just bitter because you suck at this, you can't get Dan to pay attention to you because you're such an uptight bitch about everything – that's why boys never go for you unless I set you up, no one wants to deal with –"
Blair laughs, a brittle sound. "Oh, please," she says. "You think he actually likes you, and not just the fact that you're always losing your clothes around him? He'd never be with someone like you – he knows everyone else has. Plus you're really just not smart enough." Her eyes meet Serena's in the mirror. "And did you honestly think Dan Humphrey was going to fuck you after you took advantage of his baby sister?"
Serena presses her lips together. "You don't get to think you're better than me," she says. "Maybe I started first, but you're just as bad as me, maybe worse. At least I'm not a coward. I'm not afraid of what people say about me. So I'm a big slut – so what? I'm not doing anything that everyone else isn't doing, I'm just not hiding it."
"The rules are different for the Serena van der Woodsens of the world, but I'm a Waldorf," Blair says, turning back around to face her. Anger has brought the first crack to her façade. "People expect you to party and be wild and sleep with whoever you want. You shot your reputation to hell a long time ago, it doesn't matter what you do. Do you think I relish the fact that I have to act like Mary Sunshine twenty-four seven so I can be considered a lady? I'm the Marcia fucking Brady of the Upper East Side and sometimes I want to kill myself. But I do what I have to do to get what I want."
The silence seems to vibrate after that. Then Serena says, low and easy, "You know everyone hates you? Really. Everyone knows you're a two-faced bitch. Nobody likes you, nobody trusts you, and they can't wait to see you fall."
"Is that a threat?"
"Just the facts," Serena says with a shrug. "I think I'm gonna go find Dan." She heads out the door without so much as a backwards glance, though she can feel Blair's eyes on her. She knows this isn't over, if it ever even could be; she knows that Blair lashes out when she's cornered or hurt, and Serena might as well have just fired a shot, or started a war.
Serena and Dan sit on her bedroom floor with half the contents of the liquor cabinet, plus some other goodies they'd gone into town to get. Serena holds maraschino cherries between her teeth and tries to teach him how to make cocktails, smiles when the taste of whiskey makes him wince.
"I'm sorry you and your sister are fighting," he says.
Serena shrugs. "You know Blair," she says. "She can be really hard to get along with, secretly sad or not."
Dan ducks his head with a wry smile. "You guys are really close, though, aren't you?"
"Close as two sisters could be," Serena says, then tops off his glass. "C'mon, I'm here to teach you to drink and you've got several years of experience to catch up on."
Dan gets drunk startlingly fast and he makes a real cute drunk, happy where she thought he'd be maudlin. His eyes are bright and he grins easily, face flushed. Serena just gets tipsy enough to press her fingertips against his cheeks and kiss him on the forehead. "You're adorable," she tells him.
"You're not too bad yourself," Dan says. His eyes fall to her mouth in an unconscious way she's seen plenty of times before, though it never fails to please her.
"Oh no?" They're leaning up against her footboard, initially side-to-side but now halfway facing each other, shoulders pressed and heads tilted against the upholstered bedframe. Serena lets her hand rest on his neck, fiddling with his collar. "Then why are you always running away?"
He sighs softly but negates it with a slight smile. "Apparently I'm an uptight, patronizing virgin," he says. "That's what I hear, anyway."
"Being a virgin just means you haven't had sex yet." Her fingers traipse over the arch of his cheekbone. "It's a pretty easy fix."
Dan turns his face away from her a little. "It's embarrassing," he says.
"What is?" Serena murmurs.
"Waiting," he says – and something about the way he says it, his inflection and the roll of his eyes, reminds her suddenly of Blair. "Wanting to wait. I mean…. What am I really waiting for?"
"Love, I thought," she says gently.
"I'm starting to see how ridiculous that is," he says.
It's strange, because the entire point of getting involved with him was his newness, his morality, his hard and fast rules in a world where most people didn't bother with any. To hear him say something like that ought to make her happy because the whole point is to break down his barriers but instead it's a little niggling disappointment in the back of Serena's mind. She wants him to believe in love. She wants him to hold onto all that because if he can't, then probably no one can.
Before she can wrangle her ineloquent tongue to get any of those words out, Dan tilts forward and presses his mouth to hers. It's the first kiss he ever initiated. It's what she was waiting for, but it feels oddly like a letdown.
But still she wraps her arms around him, kisses back. Dan presses closer until she tips backwards, hand reaching out for purchase and knocking over bottles. They both laugh a little, sheepish, and right them before clambering up onto her bed, kissing much more insistently. Dan's hands slip under the hem of her t-shirt as hers curl in his hair, his touch warm and uncertain. Serena presses quick little kisses to his mouth before pulling back briefly to tug her shirt over her head and then reaching for his too.
There's a breathless pause. Instead of kissing her again, Dan's just looking at her, something soft and indecipherable in his expression. He brushes her hair back off her shoulders in a purposeful way, almost seeming to arrange it gently around her. His thumb brushes over her cheek before his fingers skate down the length of her neck, trace her collarbone, follow the upward curve of her breast. But the entire time he's looking at her. He's looking her in the eye.
"You're so beautiful," he says, not in the way guys usually do, but like she's something remarkable. Like there is something particular and special in her beauty. "I'm happy I'm here with you."
He gives her a small smile before leaning in to kiss her, only Serena flinches involuntarily, her stomach twisting. He pulls back, worry creasing his forehead. "What? Did I do something wrong?"
"No, no, it's –" Serena blinks suddenly, averting her gaze. "I don't know, I… Maybe we shouldn't do this."
She doesn't know what she expects from him, but agreement isn't it. "You're right…" he says, just a touch of regret in his voice. "I'm a little drunk, and… I don't think it's fair, to be with you if –"
He breaks off, so she asks quietly, "If what?"
"If I have…feelings…for someone else too," he says apologetically. "It's shitty of me to do. I'm sorry."
"That's okay," Serena says even though it's anything but. "Um, can we just… Don't go?" She didn't mean for it to come out as a question.
"Of course," he says with that same small smile, moving close enough for her to put her head on his shoulder, her arm draped over his chest. She blinks her eyes dry and presses close to his warmth, telling herself that being jealous is stupid, telling herself she has time with him now that Blair doesn't want him anymore.
Serena tells herself a lot of things but she never really believes them.
It's late, the night before their return to the city, and Blair is spending it sulking in her room. She's already packed so she's spending the last hour before bed tucked in her window seat and writing in her diary, spilling out all the things she can't normally say. It's hot out but in the worst way, sticky and muggy, and rain pelts the windows relentlessly. The last time she spoke to Nate, he told her that she had been fun, that all he was looking for was fun, didn't she have a good time too? He asked to hang out once they were back in the city. Blair knew all of it was boyspeak for wanting to fuck her and still get to romance a skinny Brooklyn social climber.
There's a knock on the door and for a moment she thinks it might be Serena, only Serena doesn't ever knock. It could be Jenny. Or…
"Come in," Blair calls, straightening a little. She closes the diary and tucks it amongst the pillows, out of sight. And of course when the door opens it's Dan, looking both self-conscious and contrite. "What do you want?"
He makes a face at her. "To talk to you, but I can see that'll be as difficult as always."
Blair rolls her eyes and reaches for her cigarette case. She plucks a red one out because the color suits her mood, but it goes nicely with her black slip too. She doesn't offer him any, both to be a bitch and because the kind of cigarette that would look best between his lips would be a white one – straightforward, classic, traditional. "What is it you want to talk about?"
"You're mad at me," he says.
"No I'm not," Blair disagrees. "I just don't like you, and therefore am unpleasant in your company."
He does that dry little laugh that he does when she's mean to him, which just annoys her more. "Okay, but I think there's a little more to it than that."
"What difference does it make?" Blair asks dismissively, taking a drag. "The outcome's the same. Why don't you go find Serena, Brooklyn, since the two of you are so terribly chummy?"
This seems to bother him, because he makes an irritated sound and strides forward to sit beside her. Blair inches away pointedly. Dan is undeterred. "Stop telling me to go find Serena," he says. "You wanted me to kiss you when you were drunk. I know you're upset because I didn't."
"Awfully high opinion of yourself."
"I just didn't want it to happen that way," Dan says. "I wanted it to be, well – more special than that."
Blair bites down on the inside of her lip, unwilling to show any kind of reaction to the words. "Whatever are you on about, Humphrey?"
"Stop being such a bitch," he says bluntly. He takes the cigarette from her fingers without asking and puts it to his mouth like he needs it to steel himself. "I can't stop thinking about you, I've tried and I can't, despite myself I – I think about you all the time." A pause, then, "You like me. I know you do."
She looks at him, voice softening deceptively when she says, "Do you think I'm the kind of girl who'd go after my sister's boyfriend?"
"I'm not her boyfriend," Dan says. "Nothing's ha– Well. In the interest of full disclosure, something did happen, but it was only –"
"You don't have to tell me," she says, cutting him off. Whatever had begun to loom in her when he started talking has sunk to the bottom of her stomach. "I don't need to hear it."
So Serena had won after all, not that that was a surprise, ultimately. Serena often wins the things Blair wants the most. That's just how it is.
"It doesn't change how I feel about you," he says.
It's oddly upsetting that even Dan Humphrey is guilty of boyspeak. She'd entertained thoughts that maybe he wasn't quite like all the others, who were always after more than one girl at once, wanting to have their cake and eat it too. Romancing one and fucking another. Wasn't that always how it went?
"You're terrible at trying to be friends with girls," she says, much more subdued now, as she takes the cigarette back.
"I can't keep my feelings bottled up," he says. "You can tell me I'm crazy if you want. You can tell me to fuck off. But I know there's something here, whether you want to admit it or not." He waits a moment but Blair offers nothing, does not even look at him. "Am I wrong?"
The moment stretches quietly, the music Blair put on earlier gratefully filling the silence. She stubs the cigarette out in a cut-glass ashtray. "You're not," she murmurs. The room feels hushed and isolated and there is something very safe about Dan, so the honesty slips out. All bets are off now. "But I can't do this."
"Because of Serena? I promise I –"
"Because I don't trust myself with you," she interrupts.
Dan frowns. "I don't understand."
"I know you don't," Blair says. She gets up, putting some distance between them, as reluctant to explain herself as she was to admit anything in the first place. She knows giving in to Dan will require giving something up, a part of herself that's ugly but nevertheless integral, and to give it up she'll have to face it, admit her own ugliness. Giving in to wanting Dan is dangerous. He is the opposite of everything she knows, and she can't have both at once. She knows she can't. She'll just end up dragging him down with her.
He doesn't press her further, but she hears him stand and come up behind her, hands resting on her arms. Blair leans back against his chest, thinking as she does it what a stupid thing it is to do. He presses a kiss into her hair and then releases her entirely, stepping back. "Okay," he says unenthusiastically. "I don't have to understand it, or like it. If you don't want to, you don't want to. I respect that."
There's a little hysterical laugh caught in Blair's throat and to keep it from exploding out of her, she turns and kisses him on the mouth, feeling him start in surprise. "What I want," she says firmly, still standing so close to him, "is for you to kiss me. Can you manage that?"
"I can try," Dan says, and immediately his arms go around her, gathering her to his chest as he kisses her. It's another stupid thing that she really shouldn't do but abruptly she is aware of how much she wants him, and how she can feel it in her entire body, this desire for him.
She supposes there's something to be said for the appeal of good boys.
Dan's nerves are clear in the way he touches her, hands never settling for long – on her back at first, then her waist, then both hands on her cheeks, cupping her face as they kiss. It's sweet that even after sleeping with Serena he'd still be so uncertain. She curls her fingers around his and puts his hands on her hips, low enough that he can take it as an invitation.
"I'm sorry," he says, a little sheepishly, "I don't know what to do."
"It's okay," Blair says, giving him another light kiss. "I'll show you."
Blair unbuttons his shirt, pressing kisses along his chest as it slips from his shoulders. Belt and jeans follow, her mouth trailing over his hipbones. Then she slides the straps of her slip down and allows him to tug it so it falls to the floor, leaving the two of them in their underwear, bare chest to bare chest, Dan's cheeks pink and lips parted as he looks at her.
"I know I'm not –" Blair starts, suddenly awkward herself. "I mean, compared to –"
But Dan covers her mouth in a kiss that deepens until they're falling back onto the bed and he says, "You're perfect," like it's the easiest thing in the world to say. It's untrue enough to be laughable, but she doesn't feel like laughing.
His first time with Serena must've been a real mess because his hesitancy shows in his every move. Blair has to put his hand between her legs, then press so his fingers slip between her folds, has to position them right against her clit. But even so, she doesn't mind, doesn't think any less of him. She likes being handled with such care. She loves the way Dan checks every few seconds if she likes something, if he's doing everything right. She loves the tenderness of his mouth against her skin, the earnestness in his expression.
It's brief but beautiful, the way Dan comes apart – the trembling in his arms and shoulders, teeth sinking into his lower lip, brow furrowed. "I'm sorry," he says immediately after, but Blair doesn't mind, "I couldn't help it –"
"You can make it up to me," she says, tipping him over onto his back as she arches an eyebrow, a genuine smile on her lips. She positions herself with her cunt over his mouth and Dan gets the picture pretty quickly, though he still needs a good deal of direction.
It's getting light out by the time they're even halfway done with each other and Blair is exhausted and thrilled, worries blunted by however many orgasms she'd had. Catching her breath, laughing, she pushes Dan away when his hand slides between her legs again, much bolder now than he was a few hours ago.
"I think I love you," he says, and she doesn't take it a bit seriously, though his smile is dazed and happy.
"You're ridiculous," she tells him fondly, letting him tug her closer. She trails her fingers over his chest, smoothes his rumpled hair. She admits, "I don't want to go back to the city."
"So let's stay," he says. "The summer isn't really over yet. We have some time before school."
She wants to give in but it would only be postponing the inevitable. She doesn't know how bad it's going to be yet; she only knows that everything good comes with a price tag attached, and she's not sure even she has enough to pay for choosing Dan. He doesn't come from the right family or have enough money. He's no one, socially speaking. He was branded by Serena long before he was even a consideration for Blair, and that's not a mark that will wash off easily.
And all that says nothing about Blair herself, the kind of person she is. Dan doesn't know half her past because it's not as neatly categorized on the internet as Serena's, and he's going to be in for a world of disappointment. She wishes she could stay right here in this early summer morning with Dan looking at her like a few good orgasms means it must be love.
Sadness is settling in the closer they get to reality. Blair kisses him. "You should make sure you have everything packed," she says. "We're leaving soon."
She kisses him again at the door, his clothes in shambles and her just in the sheet. Dan makes her laugh because he won't stop kissing her until she gives him a playful shove, and even then he comes back for one more. She allows herself to watch him walk back down the hall and she's so busy drinking in the sight of him that she doesn't notice Serena at all, doesn't even register Serena stepping out of Jenny's room just in time to see everything.
The first thing Blair does back in Manhattan is oversee the unpacking of her luggage, and she's interrupted every ten minutes or so texting Dan. Each little message brings a smile to her lips that she fails to suppress. She shouldn't be allowing this silliness to continue, she shouldn't feel good about it; she should cut her ties and move on to hooking Nate, or someone similar. She should let this go before it comes back to bite her.
She's replying to one of his dumb jokes with a halfhearted criticism when she realizes that Serena is leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. "Have you been taking lessons in lurking?" Blair says snidely. "How long have you been standing there?"
"You're not so observant lately," Serena notes in lieu of answering. "You must be feeling pretty good, considering."
Blair stiffens. "Considering?"
"Considering your victory."
Blair's eyes narrow as she stares at Serena uncomprehendingly, lips parting to ask what that's supposed to mean. But something in Serena's tight expression sparks Blair's understanding, and she's momentarily overwhelmed by it – Dan had said something happened but not what, because Blair wouldn't let him say it, which means…which means he hadn't slept with Serena at all, it was only Blair. It's only been Blair. She doesn't have a name for the feeling that suffuses her because it's one she gave up a long time ago but there is something certain and warm to it. Blair smiles, fingertips coming up to touch her lips. It had only been her. He waited for her.
"You love him," Serena accuses, voice wavering with emotion. Serena is unable to hide anything and her face betrays how hurt she is. "You love him and you don't love me anymore."
"That's not true," Blair says sharply. "You're my sister. What is you is me. All that bullshit I said – we were just fighting."
But Serena shakes her head. "No," she says. "No, you should see your face. When he came out of your room –" She presses her lips together. "You used to look at Nate like that when we were kids. Remember how that ended?"
Blair stares at her. "Are you really so pathetically jealous?"
Ignoring that, Serena continues, "People don't change, you know. Especially not us. You're just going to end up disappointing him like everyone else. He'll use you and leave you for someone good and pure and not fucked up."
"No such thing," Blair says but the words are like ashes in her mouth. The truth is everyone she ever got close to did break under her relentless pressure. They all gave her up for simpler partners, less complicated girls, less cruel ones. "Dan isn't like that, anyway."
Serena huffs a laugh, her arms still tightly crossed. "They're all like that," she says. "All those stupid boys are like that. The only person who never fucked you over is me and you don't even care."
"Oh please," Blair scoffs. "Like you've been some kind of knight errant. You steal things from me, remember – remember my mother's photoshoot and Kati's party last year and the Ivy mixer and –"
"And Nate," Serena says, voice low. "Or didn't you ever figure that one out?" When Blair remains silent, perhaps shocked into it, she adds, "We share everything, after all. Always have."
"You're deluded," Blair says, ignoring the little voice in her shrieking I knew it I always knew there was something. "In what world does that equal out to you being the only one to never screw me over? I suppose I'm sorry you feel cast aside, but I'm not going to be miserable just to give your self-esteem a boost."
Serena's expression is briefly and uncharacteristically unreadable. If Blair really tried, perhaps she could discern hesitation and indecisiveness but then Serena's frown deepens and all she's telegraphing is her pain.
"I never did it on purpose," Serena says. "Never." A pause, then, "Until now."
Genuine worry snakes down Blair's spine. "What did you do?"
Serena wets her lips, eyes downcast. "It seems Gossip Girl got ahold of some pages of your diary. Things about Jenny and Dan…and all the plans you had for them." She looks up, meeting Blair's gaze straight on. "You won," she says. "How does it feel?"
Dan isn't answering any of Blair's calls.
Dan isn't answering any of her calls and school has started back up again, so she gets to see him move silent and stone-faced through the crowds, ignoring the bullshit he's getting from everyone. They really like to quote Blair's diary at him, especially the parts about how he's "only a conquest, another little pawn" between her and Serena.
Jenny's been getting it pretty bad too, but she has Nate and the status that gives her.
And Blair, well. Blair has it worst of all.
It's a strange thing to be exposed to everyone for exactly what you are. Serena said everyone knew Blair was a two-faced bitch and maybe they did, but now they have it in black and white. No one has to pretend to put up with her anymore. Penelope has gleefully taken over with the girls at school and the entire student body follows their example in shunning Blair. She's greeted with sudden silence upon entering every classroom and followed by whispers down every hallway. The girls drop yogurt in her hair on the steps. She is called a slut and a bitch and a cunt and a liar.
It's ironic in its way. She always wanted to be the one everyone was talking about, and now she is.
"It was Serena who fucked your little girlfriend," Blair tried to tell Nate during the conversation in which he dumped her unceremoniously, again. "It was Serena who took her out and fucked her up. She's just bitter, she's just getting back at me."
Nate looked at her with surprisingly cool blue eyes, as though there had never been a time in his life when Blair meant anything. "Everyone knows it's you that pulls the strings," he said. "I mean, you did that with me too. Controlled me. You try to control everything. Couldn't take it after a while."
"I suppose that's why you slept with Serena, isn't it," Blair said, watching his expression. She'd swallowed that bit of information like medicine, sour-tasting but somehow expected – learning it had been Serena made everything make more sense, in retrospect. Blair had been hurt, but she had not been surprised.
He looked embarrassed for half a second but recovered very fast. "I didn't want you to find out," he said, as though that statement was of any value to her. "I just couldn't. You were too much."
Blair would rather die than attempt to approach Dan at school – on top of everything else, the girls keep harping on her about slumming it, fucking a nobody scholarship kid from Brooklyn. But it's not just that; she knows he'd rebuff her brutally if she tried to talk to him in public and it's another humiliation she can't face.
The journal entries Serena snapped photos of and sent off to Gossip Girl were all from the beginning of the summer, before Blair's feelings for Dan began to invade her private musings. She'd probably be more embarrassed if any of that sentimental nonsense had gotten out but at the same time she wants Dan to see that, to see that she's not just a cold, nasty bitch. She thinks of sending in her own tip, but then it slowly occurs to her that it would only seem like more manipulation. She knows the only thing that matters to Dan is honesty and so that's what she decides to give him: full disclosure, all of her worst moments, everything.
She takes a taxi to Brooklyn with a stack of three journals on her lap, identical powder blue books filled with neat writing. They cover years of her life. She held nothing back in private, between herself and those pages.
She takes a deep breath before knocking on his door, stomach twisting at the sound of his voice calling out, "Who is it?"
"Me," she says, then louder, "Blair." Silence greets that. She swallows, not having expected anything else. "I know you don't want to see me. And that's fine. I wouldn't want to see me either. But I – I have some things for you, I want…" She takes a breath, leaning against the door. "My life is a joke. I'm a horrible person. I like to rip people apart. I take joy in other people's misery. But… But I was happy with you. Even if it didn't last very long. You made me happy and it was terrifying to me. The idea of changing, it was –" Her voice falters. "Terrifying."
Silence reigns once again, for so long that Blair resigns herself to leaving the diaries before excusing herself from his life. But then the lock clicks and the door opens and there's Dan, thin serious face as solemn as ever.
"Please, take these," she says before he can speak, thrusting the books at him. "It's me, everything about me. I'm not going to lie to you, not anymore."
He accepts them, looking down at the blue covers for a moment. Then he looks back at her. "I always knew you were fucked up," he says. "I could probably get over all of that, forgive you for it, understand it. But I'll never ever forgive you for what you did to my sister and I never want to see you again."
And he shuts the door in her face.
Blair drifts home in a daze after that, feeling only a crystalline emptiness. There is nothing left inside her, bad or good.
She finds Serena in her room, on her bed. They haven't really spoken since the blast, outside of a couple shrieking arguments, and they've been carefully avoiding each other for the most part – as much as two people in the same house can. Serena looks familiar and inviting, with her hair a tangled mess and too-short skirt riding up as she curls her legs under herself.
"Hi," Serena says in a small voice.
Blair acknowledges her with a nod, drifting over to sit on the edge of the bed. She clears her throat a little and says, after a moment, "It's always you and me, isn't it?" though she doesn't sound particularly happy about it.
Serena inches closer and slides her arm around Blair. "Always," she says softly, her face so close, close enough to kiss.