needle in the hay
dan/serena. 9k words. AU.
w:incest (though dan and serena are not blood-related), drunk teen sex, general malaise and ennui, other shady things probably
summary:Serena's not your sister, a voice in his head insists.
note: I started this fic back in 2012 (ikr) but somehow I lost my rhythm on it and it has been laying around ever since. It was originally inspired in part by The Royal Tenenbaums, hence the title, but really only vestiges of that remain. My main interest was in bb!wild!Serena and angsty!loner!Dan, but be warned this fic is relatively high on creep factor. Anyway, this is for![]()
sing_song_sung, happy belated birthday!!!!!
Dan's seventeen and it's the summer, his third in Southampton. He's staying at the house of a woman who is his grandmother by marriage, who pats his hair with French tipped talons and says he reminds her of her late husband. The third, she specifies.
He's waiting for the Hamptons Jitney to arrive, sitting on a bench with his moleskin open but untouched, one leg crossed over the other.
She's late, as usual.
She emerges from the bus with her usual light step, like she’s floating, and a timely gust of wind blows golden hair back off her shoulders. A bright smile is already widening on her face, turning her eyes into two cartoonish half-moons. She's got on red Converse high tops, tiny denim shorts, and a bikini top with a jacket over it. There's one bag slung across her chest and two more in either hand.
She stops a few feet from him. "Hi," Serena says, voice gentle and warm.
"Hey," he says softly, getting to his feet.
The space between them might as well be a gaping chasm.
Serena’s brother is how he comes to be known, no matter how many times he insists I’m not.
Dan’s parents get divorced when he’s seven and it’s fine, it’s cool, everyone deals with it and stays good friends. Dan and Jenny live with their mother in the loft they grew up in. Their father lives two stops away on the train and they see him every day. It’s almost like nothing has changed. Everything’s fine until it's not.
Dan’s father remarries first, to an icy blonde who shakes Dan’s hand upon first meeting him as though he is a peer and not a nine year old. It’s a perplexing experience, that handshake. She never says anything patronizing like you can call me mom if you want to, for which Dan is grateful. She simply introduces herself as Lily and then her eyes slide off him and Jenny as though they're just room decorations. The mere mention of Lily’s name is enough to make their mother’s jaw clench.
Lily has a massive townhouse on the Upper East Side and two children of her own, a girl Dan’s age and a boy Jenny’s, like some kind of freaky Brady Bunch matched set.
They see their dad slightly less. Jenny and their new stepbrother bond instantly, become glued to each other’s sides. Dan is jealous in an impossible-to-pinpoint way. He does not bond with Serena. Dan isn’t in the market for a new sister and, anyway, he’s learned from the old one that they’re nothing but trouble.
Everything’s fine until it isn’t. His mother meets Alex and marries him and Alex does say things like, “You know, kiddo, you can call me Dad if you want.” He makes their mother starry-eyed. Dan imagines blowing Alex up like something from a comic book.
The first time Dan cries throughout the entire shifting families ordeal – the divorce, the new kids, the abandoning of their tightknit little mother-father-daughter-son arrangement – is when his mother sits him and Jenny down to say they’re moving to Hudson. She can really paint there, she says, and she’s always wanted to be an artist, don’t they like Mommy’s paintings? And they’ll have fresh air and a backyard and a dog. A brand new start.
A brutal row erupts between his parents, and at the end of it Dan and Jenny move into Lily's townhouse. Their mother leaves the city. Jenny cries more than Dan and she’s the baby, so everyone coddles her.
It’s then that they really become a matched set, marched to school in identical uniforms – Dan, Serena, Eric, and Jenny, alternating dark and light heads bent into the wind, looking just like the family they aren’t.
Dan can handle exactly one week of that stonewalled prep school, full of carbon-copy kids who curl their lip at him for reasons none of them even understand yet. Dan handles a week of eating lunch alone and getting glared at when he answers questions right in class and getting his books smacked out of his hands in the halls before he cracks. He’d never suffered such indignities at public school, where he actually had friends and even if he hadn’t, nobody would have bothered him.
It takes a week, but he cracks and punches Chuck Bass in the face. He doesn’t regret it, even as the shocked stifled gasp ripples through the room and the teachers all rush to Chuck’s side. Blood blooms brightly on Chuck’s shirt, both hands held to his nose. Dan’s knuckles hurt.
He is sent to the office to wait for his father, sitting sullenly in a sturdy chair in the corner, kicking his legs back and forth. He doesn’t know how she heard or where she came from, but Serena is there, missing class. She sits next to him, sits on her hands as though she must to keep them still, waterfall of blonde hair over her eyes. “Is your dad here yet?” she asks. Her legs cross at the ankle. Her shoes are non-regulation sky blue Converse.
“Do you see him?” Dan snaps.
Serena bites her lip. “Chuck’s the worst,” she blurts a moment later. “He tried to look up my skirt the other day.”
Secretly appalled, Dan only shrugs.
“Everyone picked on him, before,” she continues. “He was new.”
Dan still doesn’t respond.
“I’ll wait with you,” Serena offers, and she does.
Serena’s brother is how they come to accept him, because everyone loves Serena.
“Oh, Serena, darling,” Lily says, like an afterthought. They’re at dinner. Lily is speaking to Serena but looking at Dan’s father, removing her glasses and letting them hang from the elegant gold chain around her neck, smiling flirtatiously. “Why don’t you take your brother to the party, hmm?”
They’ve settled on doing that for years now and Dan still hates it, dropping the step as though calling him her brother will make it so.
Serena is half-ready for said party, glitter shimmering golden down her arms and hair in messy curlicues that Lily's stylist had carefully hot-ironed.
She plays dumb, rolling her eyes. “Mom, I’m not bringing a kid to the party with me. Eric’s a baby, he’s too young.” In revenge, Eric flicks a pea at her that Serena bats away with a playful grin.
“You know what I meant,” Lily says, in that arch tone of hers. “You’d like to go, wouldn’t you, Daniel?”
“No,” Dan says, pushing his food around.
“Come on,” his dad cajoles. Concern is evident on his face. “You could use a little bit of fun.”
His dad has been worried about him for a while now, sharing low-voiced distant phone calls with his mom about how Dan is withdrawn, moody, not himself. Allison wants Dan to move in with her and Alex. Dan doesn't know what he wants.
So he gets dragged along to one of Serena’s friends’ stupid parties. He’s never gone before but he’s seen her stumble back from them, drunk and giggly, and he’s seen her spend the night vomiting. Sometimes her best friend Blair, the haughty brunette who never warmed to Dan, accompanies her, sighing heavy sighs Dan can feel in his chest as she cleans Serena up.
No one else seems to notice how Serena comes home drunk in the middle of the night and how that’s not quite right. Except maybe Eric, whose alert dark eyes Dan has met more than once they peer out of their rooms, wondering which one of them is going to go hold Serena’s hair while she barfs.
Serena wears a glittering dress to the party, too short over pitch-black tights and boots. Everything about her glitters and when she links arms with Dan she leaves gold sparkles all over his left side. Her smile is wide and beaming and white, shiny with lipgloss, and she tells him not to worry. Dan lies, says he never worries, and that makes Serena laugh, gold-tipped finger reaching out to smooth the furrowed knot between his eyebrows.
“I’ll be there the whole time,” she promises.
When they get there, Blair groans, unlatching from her boyfriend long enough to hug Serena tightly and grumble, “I can’t believe you brought Brooklyn with you.”
Brooklyn, a place he left six years ago and hasn’t been able to shake since.
He and Nate nod at each other, both used to tagging along with little to say.
“B, don’t be mean to my brother,” Serena says, turning her wide smile Dan’s way again and giving him a wink. Dan smiles back automatically and then flushes, knows there is something wrong about the way his stomach turns over, whooshes.
Dan is fifteen when he overhears a bunch of boys talking about his stepsister in the locker room. Serena van der Woodsen is so easy, they say, like they have any real idea of what that means yet, she'll do anything.
They know who Dan is and he's sitting close enough that they must realize. Dan doesn't know why he doesn't say anything; he's frozen, his spine tense. Dan's gotten into fights for less before. He and Chuck Bass practically have a standing start-of-the-year scuffle, so it's not like he's afraid to throw a punch.
I heard she fucked Carter Baizen at Graham Woods' party.
Dan's fingers tighten on the latch of his locker. If Nate were here he'd get into it with them, not out of temper but a sense of honor, because Nate is one of those stand-up guys.
Serena's reputation is not unfounded. But Dan knows that's no reason for anyone to talk about her like these boys are, his face getting progressively redder with anger and shame as he listens. Dan had gone to Graham Woods' party. He'd sat in the corner and smoked with Nate while Serena danced with half of St. Jude's, her arms up high and hair haloing her with every spin. Dan had seen her go off with Carter. She'd lost her top at some point earlier in the night and her bra was hot pink, a little too small, the strap riding up her back and tits swelling over the cups.
No one seemed to care much at the time, but the next day at school no one would shut up about it. At the time, Dan remembers thinking someone should do something, that Carter was too old, that Serena was too drunk, that the whole thing was just wrong. But Dan didn't move then and he doesn't move now, doesn't do anything except listen stock-still on the nights Serena brings boys and men home, sleeps with them either in her room or on her mother's sofa, sends them back out into the cold night before the sun dawns chilly yellow.
The boys' conversation slips further into vulgarities and Dan's honor finally kicks in, or something. He faces a week of suspension for the fight and when he is implored, first by teachers and the headmaster and then by his father, to explain why he lost it in the locker room, Dan only shrugs and looks away.
Later Serena tiptoes barefoot into his room and sits at the edge of his bed, her back to him. Warily, Dan tugs out one earbud and waits for her to speak.
"I heard about what happened," she says softly, glancing back over her shoulder at him. "What they said. And what you did."
Dan says nothing, teeth sinking into his lower lip to keep the words back.
"Thank you," she says.
"It wasn't right," Dan starts, falters. She turns towards him a little more. "Uh. For them to…say those things. About you. About anyone, but, uh – It just…wasn't right. You're not – um, you're – you're not what they…were saying." She's just a girl, like any other girl, except for all the ways she shines so brightly.
Serena looks at him, almost puzzled. "I like that you think that," she says finally, then gives him a sad smile and leaves.
Dan is fifteen and his stepsister's always been gorgeous but it has only just dawned on him.
Serena sits on the kitchen counter eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. Her hair is in two messy braids. She's wearing a cotton nightgown with skinny straps, light blue startling against her tan. Her feet swing bare against the cabinets, nails painted Barbie pink. With each tiny shifting movement her short nightgown rides a little higher on her thighs. Dan looks away.
Passing by her room on the way to his, her door not quite closed, Dan sees her release her hair from a clip and send it spilling down her back. She lifts her shirt over her head and unhooks her bra, her naked back hidden behind all that shining hair.
Dan's father is trying to institute a weekly family movie night that they all suffer through with sibling solidarity. Serena tucks a blanket around them all, her arm linked through Eric's and her head on Dan's shoulder. She wears a bulky sweater over possibly nothing, every so often wriggling around to tug on the end of the sweater, making sure it covers her ass even under the blanket. She smells sweet and fresh, and her happy laughter is close to Dan's ear. This is who he thinks of as the real Serena, not the smoke-scented loud-drunk girl who trips inside at two a.m.
Dan is stepping out of the shower when the door pushes in and Serena laughs, spinning around quickly and clapping a hand over her eyes. "Sorry, sorry," she says. "I lost my tie and I wanted to borrow your extra." Dan rolls his eyes affectionately and wraps a towel around his waist. Their ties aren't even the same. He tells her he's covered and she peeks around, smile sunny as ever. He moves past her to go get the tie and she pinches his wet side, teases, "Looking good, bro."
They're always knocking into each other, in hallways or the kitchen. Serena never looks where she's going and Dan is always distracted, book in his hand or homework waiting for him. They always end up in that stupid little laughing dance: one going to move around the other, who accidentally mirrors the movement, rinse, repeat. Once he turns into the kitchen just as she steps out and is doused in orange juice for his trouble. All apologies, Serena grabs a dishtowel to fruitlessly dab at it, and Dan knows he does not imagine the way her hands linger, her eyes linger, just as he knows what he's doing when he wraps a hand around her wrist to gently push her back but doesn't let go until a long moment has passed.
Sometimes she comes in to sit on the edge of his bed as he does his work and listens to music. At first, he hadn't been able to get anything done, only pretending to write his essay while he stared at her back instead, Elliott Smith punctuating the moment with a painful wistfulness. She reads magazines or talks on the phone to Blair, careless of Dan hearing her gossip. She reclines along the foot of his bed, leaves golden hairs on his sheets; bored, on her back, she kicks her legs up, chatting away as she examines her pedicure, skirt falling back. Dan shuts his eyes and counts to ten, which is what the Lily-prescribed therapist told him to do whenever his anger flares up, but he's found it works in other situations too.
At night he finds it's harder to push the images of Serena out of his mind – Serena's skin, Serena's thighs, Serena's shoulders touched by her beautiful hair, Serena's tits always seeming poorly contained by her clothing, Serena's bright shiny smile, the thoughtful tilt to Serena's head as she talks, as she listens.
Their parents think it's wonderful that they're finally so close.
Serena is wearing a dress that's got to be illegal somewhere, red and tight and strappy, revealing a long strip of sternum. It cuts off high on her thighs, leaving about eight miles of long tan leg until it hits metallic heels. Dan thinks he could probably see her internal organs if he squinted.
She fluffs her hair, looking into the mirror by the elevator. "Like it?" she asks, giving Dan a playful eyebrow raise. He drops his gaze even as he smiles, looking at the book in his hands but unable to see any of the text in it clearly. She teases him, "Don't wait up."
"I always do," he says automatically, without meaning to, and flushes with embarrassment.
But Serena doesn't look at him like he has anything to be embarrassed about. She looks all soft, almost serious. "I know," she says. "I know you do."
It's a bad habit Dan has developed. It used to be waking up when he heard the door but now he's unable to fall asleep without hearing her heels on the hardwood, the click of her door pulling shut for the night. Some nights she doesn't come home at all, and Dan twists fitfully until he falls into an uneasy sleep. Sometimes Blair texts him to say that Serena's with her. Sometimes she doesn't.
Tonight the front door slides open on the other side of four a.m. and the quiet shuffle of Serena's bare feet carries across the living room and up the stairs. It passes by her door and stops in front of Dan's. The knob swivels and then there's Serena. "Hey," she says. Even standing there she weaves a little.
Dan nods at her. "Uh, how was the party?"
Serena only shrugs. "Take off your shirt."
Surprise must register on his face but neither of them say anything. She's seen him without his shirt plenty of times - in pools, around the house - but it feels different when she requests it and his skin prickles as he pulls it over his head. He's just wearing boxers now, not even nice ones. But she just looks at him, her eyes a little glassy-drunk, skin a little shiny with sweat, hair a little flat, overall a little decompressed after her night at the club.
She drifts over to sit beside him, tucking her legs under her. The door is still open. Slow with sleep, Dan wonders if he is in fact dreaming as Serena's fingertips traipse over his chest, nails chipped but nevertheless filed into perfect, identical ovals thanks to weekly manicures. "You're so nice," she murmurs, "To me."
She touches his stomach, palm pressing. "I'm, uh, I'm a nice guy," he says, lamely.
Serena smiles. "I've never ¬–"
"Serena, did I hear you come in?"
They both jump out of their skin, Dan yanking his blankets higher and Serena hopping to her feet. "Yeah, Mom," she calls back, irritation in her voice. "I'm home!"
"Well go to bed, darling, you have school tomorrow!"
Serena rolls her eyes.
"That's Lily," Dan says. "She mothers once every seventeen years, like locusts."
A stifled laugh twists Serena's mouth. Maybe it's for the best, they both think and don't say. "Goodnight, Dan," Serena says, leaning in to press a light kiss to his cheek, leaving lipgloss behind.
He catches her hand before she moves away, squeezes her fingers. "Night, Serena," he says softly.
"I hate weddings," Serena says and then punctuates it with five shots in a row, all procured by flirting with the bartender.
It’s the wedding of someone's cousin to someone's cousin, the kind of event that seems to happen constantly since Dan became a tagalong to the rich kids – became one of the rich kids – only most of the time he can get out of attending. School is mandatory but bearable; the parties he goes to only when Serena expressly asks. This is like some heinous prom precursor, everyone from school here in formalwear sneaking drinks under their parents' less-than-watchful eyes.
At some point Nate gets so drunk that he starts telling Dan about this horse he had when he was a kid, hand gripping Dan's jacket as though the information is urgent. Dan cannot tell if it is supposed to be a metaphor. He nods and mhm's, wondering who on earth has their own horse until he remembers Serena does too, at some farm, and its name is Snowflake. The thought makes him look around for her but she's nowhere to be found in the sparkling crowd. He sees Jenny looking fit to burst with happiness in her floaty pink dress, some boy chatting her up. She sips champagne like its something she does every single day. Dan's gaze finds Eric not too far away from her, so he doesn't worry. Jenny's taken to this life like Dan knows he never will and it makes Dan resentful of her, jealous of her, angry with her.
She's just a kid, though. She's just doing what kids do. Dan is only sixteen but he thinks he's already old, past the point of having champagne fun.
Blair appears as Blair tends to appear, a swooping vindictive presence beneath a layer of crackling sugar. Her smile is fixed but her gait reflects clear irritation as she shoots like a bullet through the crowd, directly towards Nate and Dan. Once again she and Dan are the only sober ones at the party, something they both recognize and both choose not to address.
"Go take care of Serena," Blair snaps, nary a greeting to be found. "I've got Nate." She unhooks Nate's fingers from Dan's jacket.
"I don't know where she is," Dan says.
Blair rolls her eyes, pure impatience as she pushes Nate away, sloppy drunk and trying to kiss her. "Then find her." Dan always feels there's a threatening edge whenever Blair Waldorf speaks to him, a silent or else.
Dan emerges into the lobby, leaving the loud reception behind. He doesn't know where to start – the bathrooms, maybe – and walks slowly down the wide hotel hallway, crowd thinning as he goes. He hears Serena before he sees her, her off-key alcoholic singing echoing over the distant sounds of blaring Top 40's. Her voice leads him into an empty room, maybe a ballroom, some wide expanse with a polished bar at one end. She's there, rifling behind it for booze.
"Dan!" she exclaims happily. "Dan, I'm craving mojitos, come help –" Then she starts in on another verse, her singing so utterly toneless that it makes Dan smile.
"I think you've had more than enough," he says, approaching her with his hands in his pockets.
Serena sticks out her tongue. "No such thing. Ooh, champagne!"
She sets the bottle on the bar and swings herself up after it. She's barefoot. The sun filtering in from the high windows lights her up, her golden dress and golden hair and golden skin, makes her all a-flame for a minute.
His notebook is in the pocket of his jacket, which he left on the back of his chair in the reception hall before setting out, so he'll have to remember this.
"Dan," she sing-songs. She holds the bottle out to him, legs folding as she takes a seat. "Help me."
Dan sighs. "You shouldn't drink more. Your mom'll be pissed."
"She doesn't care," Serena says. There's no emotion attached to it – casual, like commenting on the weather. Her mother doesn't care that her fifteen-year-old daughter is drunk and getting drunker. And, really, it's the truth. "Open it. Pleeeeease, come on, Dan, have some fun for –"
"Blair will be pissed," he tries, more sternly. That should at least carry weight. "And she'll blame me when –"
Serena grabs his tie, loose around his neck, and tugs him over. She presses a finger to his lips, murmurs, "I won't tell if you don't."
Her eager, pretty eyes; so blue. Dan will have to remember that too. Fine, he thinks. He'll help.
The champagne pops between them with a frothy spill, covering their hands. Serena laughs, head tipped back, a bright sound. She presses the cool lip of the bottle to Dan's mouth and tips it up so champagne fizzes over his tongue. He swallows it like water, swallows and swallows until he's dizzy, and then pulls away abruptly. A wayward gush splashes between them, soaking into Dan's shirt, before she rights the bottle again.
"We should go back," Dan says, a call to responsibility he can never quite quell. His brow furrows, he frowns; he does everything but wring his hands. Serena's champagne-sticky hand is on his cheek, her forehead against his forehead as she brings the bottle to her lips. Dan watches her throat working in a swallow.
His head isn't clearing at all, just going soft and cloudy like falling asleep. Soft like Serena's voice as she says, "You're so nice. I've never met anyone so nice."
"Well, I guess we're…" Family is what he's about to say, but they're not that, they're not family. They're family only in the most technical sense of it. They have breakfast together every morning and dinner together most nights. He grew up down the hall from her. He's seen her at her embarrassing worst, her hair in a topknot and facemask drying to a cracked green on her skin. He takes care of her when she's sick, which is just mom-code for hungover. He walks with her to school when she actually goes. Jenny calls Eric her brother but Dan refuses to accept it, refuses to let Serena be his sister. She's not, she can't be, because people aren't supposed to look at their sisters the way Dan looks at Serena.
"We're?" Serena repeats gently.
"We're –" he starts again, loses his words again, and then it doesn't matter anyway, because Serena's mouth is on his and his brain goes blank trying to justify that. The kiss is fierce, rushed – hardly the poetic musings he'd entertained late at night, imagining their heads tilting together like something in a movie trailer, music swelling. It's nothing like that. Her mouth crashes into his and the hazy atmosphere splits down the middle, cracks and will never be the same.
There is so much of her, she's everywhere. Her lipgloss tastes like strawberries. He presses his face to her neck, salt-sweet and perfume hot, and can't catch his breath. He's never kissed anyone before, and he feels ashamed of that, that innocence. Dan thinks they can still stop and probably continue to be as normal as normal can be; they're tipsy enough and fucked up enough that it can be suppressed. They can stop right now and keep pretending, go on pretending.
So he harnesses every last shred of his willpower and pulls away from her. "Blair told me to find you," he says. "So I did." He meets her eyes, which are hurt and betrayed. "And now we should go back."
She looks extinguished, suddenly, and sober. Her mouth is twisted, unhappy.
"I'm sorry," Dan says automatically, but Serena simply slips off the bar and moves past him.
She ignores him for the rest of the night, dancing with Blair and the other girls, flirting with Hazel Williams' young stepfather. But when the reception draws to a close, she comes home instead of going out, makes tea and curls up on the couch with a huge slice of pure white wedding cake. Everyone else drifts off to bed except for her and Dan, sitting on either side of the sofa and not speaking.
"Want some?"
Dan starts, but Serena is only holding out the plate, expression guileless if a little subdued. He shakes his head.
"C'mon, have some." She shifts over, her knees pressing now against the outside of his thigh, and holds out a forkful expectantly. The bodice of her gold dress has twisted around her slightly, a little akimbo, and the chiffon skirt fans around her legs, pale gold deepening to a dark autumnal shade in the folds.
Dan gives in, leaning forward to accept the mouthful, sugary cake melting on his tongue, frosting thick and vanilla. He swallows hard. He has a feeling that he knows what she's doing and sure enough her fingers brush a real-or-imagined crumb from his mouth, her eyes focused on his lips intently before she moves closer and kisses him.
She's not your sister, he tells himself. She is not your sister.
She gets into his lap, curling her hands in a shirt still stiff with dried champagne, and kisses him harder, catches his lower lip in her teeth. This is wrong, he thinks as he grips her waist, as he grabs her hair. Serena a whirling force to which Dan's stillness can only bend.
This is so wrong.
Brain not working as fast as it ought to be, Dan catches on two seconds too late as she yanks his belt open, his zipper, her hand closing around him ¬–
"I want to, do you want to?" Serena murmurs, mouth sugar-sweet on his. What else can he do but nod? He's in her hands, figuratively and literally, a cringing pun.
They move together on the couch in the living room, hushing each other, burying mouths against shoulders when the sounds become impossible to stifle any other way. Serena whimpers, startlingly loud in the hush, and it makes Dan groan; her hand slides over his mouth and he returns the favor, covering hers.
But it's over abruptly. He's almost incredulous that that's it, that's already it. The beating of his heart echoes all throughout his body; he can feel Serena's pulse underneath his lips, but maybe it's just his own. He didn't touch her enough. He barely touched her at all, and now it's over.
Dan breathes against her collarbone until Serena pushes herself away, standing on unsteady legs. "I –" Dan starts. "We should –"
"I'm going to go meet Georgina," Serena interrupts. She twists her dress around so it's lying right again and pushes her hair out of her eyes. "I don't know when I'll be back. If anyone asks, say I'm with Blair."
They both know no one will ask.
"Okay," Dan says, because he doesn't know what else to say. She doesn't look at him as she grabs her clutch and her shoes, barreling towards the elevators, vanishing from the dim apartment.
He just sits there, alone and rumpled and half-undressed. Not a virgin.
Dan is sixteen when they sleep together, and sixteen when Serena runs away.
She's gone a year, one entire year that sees all the changes of the seasons. Dan calls her until her phone is disconnected.
"I had no idea she was even considering it," Lily says to Dan's father, as though what Serena did was remarkable instead of messed up. "I'd brought home the brochures but she never wanted to look at them. It'll be good for her. I always said boarding school would be good for her."
She left the night of the wedding and hasn't spoken to anyone except her mother since, which on its own is enough of a sign that something is wrong. Dan is repulsed by how easily everyone goes on without Serena here, barely missing a step. The girls at school rearrange around Blair. Nate gets a little more sullen. Lily seems freed of a burden. Eric seems worried like Dan is worried, but neither of them say anything.
The feeling he had that night never dissipates. Instead it seems to settle into his bones. The abruptness of their coupling paired with the abruptness of her departure has left Dan in some kind of arrested fog he can't seem to shake off.
Blair's the only one who gets it, he thinks. Everyone's caught up in the mystery of Serena leaving but they don't really care. It's just another story. But Dan looks at Blair and sees the same acute longing, missing Serena.
In the year Serena is gone, Dan starts going to parties, returning home drunk and morose. He becomes as popular as he's probably ever going to get; who knew the secret to that was total willing self-destruction, allowing anyone to do anything to you without caring? He hooks up with a lot of people. He develops a regular drink that stops tasting weird to him after awhile. One weekend the whole family goes away so Dan allows a party to be thrown at the townhouse, though he escapes from it a few hours in. He goes upstairs, trailing fingertips along the wall as he passes door after door until he reaches Serena's.
The maid has cleaned up since Serena left so her room is spotless in a way it never was before. Her clothes are freshly pressed in the closet. Her shoes are lined up on the floor. Even her computer waits, hooked up to the charger and pulsing with light because no one has thought to turn it off. Dan picks up a bottle of perfume from her abandoned collection and releases a cloud of it into the room, soft and flowery. He feels a pang he hadn't quite anticipated.
"Jesus, Humphrey."
Dan jumps at the soft exclamation, turning to see Blair in the doorway of Serena's bathroom. "I didn't know anyone was in here."
"Lurker," she accuses, but it's lacking her usual punch. When he looks closer he sees that her eyes are red-rimmed.
He frowns. "Are you okay?"
She glares at him, but again it seems diminished somehow. "Yes," she says, but then surprises Dan by sitting beside him on the end of the bed. Her fingers curl in her skirt. "You haven't heard from her, have you?"
"No," he says.
"I keep thinking…" Blair frowns, mouth a hard little line. "We had a fight at the wedding, you know, and I keep thinking this is something I did – that she's punishing me, or something."
"Serena doesn't have it in her to punish anyone," Dan says. As sure as he knows that Serena leaving is his fault, he knows that Serena probably thinks it's hers. "You didn't do anything, Blair."
She looks at him, face softening reluctantly, eyes sad. "How do you know?"
Dan sighs a little, reaching up impulsively to push her hair behind her ear. "I just know," he says.
The moment lasts one inappropriate second too long. Blair's lips part as she takes a quick breath. Dan's mouth fits easily with hers, unthinkingly, a gentle silent kiss that they both chicken out of halfway through. He looks away, and so does she.
Then her fingers are tilting his face back, are climbing into his hair, and they kiss again, more assuredly.
"I haven't –" Blair says as they fall back onto the bed; she's pulling at his shirt, hurried and impatient.
"It's okay," Dan says, kissing her hard, and lies, "I haven't either."
After everyone has left and the house is littered with bottles, cups, and cigarette butts, Dan sits on the floor finishing off a joint and a fifth of vodka. The house feels very empty, and very large.
"I fucked my sister," he tells the empty room.
The room does not react and the world doesn't end, but the well-trained voice in Dan's head tries to reassert that Serena is not his sister, not in the ways that count. Not blood. Just time and love and trust and shared space – just all the other ways.
He doesn't sleep that night, instead spending the remaining hours until dawn scouring the house until it's picture-perfect again. The idea of the maid having to clean up after his carelessness is too guilt-inducing. It's his mess, and he should be the one looking after it.
Once afternoon hits he finally looks in the mirror, finding his reflection wan and distorted. Dan runs a hand over his face and then his hair, overlong and bedraggled. A scissor glints from the countertop, left there after some quick practical task – sniping tags on Lily-sanctioned clothes, maybe. On impulse he picks it up, pulls one curl of hair straight and snips it close to the root, and then does so with another, and another, until his hair litters the sink and the tiles and his clothes.
Dan is seventeen and it's the summer, his third in Southampton. It promises to be long, lonely, and parched. One morning like any other, Lily is excusing herself early (places to be, spas to go to) when she says, "Daniel, dear, could you get Serena from the jitney? She'll be coming in in an hour or so. Someone really ought to meet her, and I have a massage booked."
For a minute Dan just carries on having his breakfast as though he hadn't heard her at all, and then slowly her words reach him. He puts down his toast. "Serena?" he repeats, like her name is a foreign word. "Serena's back?"
He suspects it's a hoax right up until he's watching Serena sail towards him with that familiar sad smile. Her face seems thinner, older. Different.
"Hi," she says.
"Hey," Dan answers.
Serena reaches over and rubs a hand over his buzzed head, a gesture so startlingly intimate that he almost flinches. "This is new."
It isn't, really; he's been keeping it this way since his post-party crisis, which was months ago. But he nods and confirms it, because what difference does it make?
"I liked it before," she says softly.
Dan doesn't respond to that, instead reaching for one of her bags. Their hands touch, spark; the duffle hits the sidewalk with a dull thud as they both jerk back. They keep the breadth of the pavement between them when they head home, Dan walking the curb like a tightrope.
"How's Eric?" Serena asks, a little anxiously, fingers twisting in the fringe on her jacket. "Is he mad at me? How's Jenny?"
Dan shrugs. "Fine. Everyone's fine."
Serena nods and smiles but she looks a little stung nonetheless. Everyone's fine means without you. "That's good."
"Yeah…" Dan shoves his hands deep in his pockets. His next words come out in a rush. "Why are you here?" Serena blinks, looking very stung then. "Now, I mean. Why now?"
She doesn't answer, and then deflects, bridging their gap so she can stick her arm through his. "I was craving gelato the whole bus ride," she says, like nothing has changed. "Is that place still around, the one Jenny was, like, obsessed with?"
Dan is stony for a moment, frowning, but he gives in. Of course he does. "Yeah. Yeah, it's still around."
Dinner that night is a tense, awkward affair – Lily, Cece, and Serena doing their best to fill the room up with false chatter while Eric and Dan are sullen, Rufus and Jenny caught in the middle. Eric is mad at Serena, as it turns out, and even though Dan is at least half to blame for her leaving, he takes comfort in Eric's anger, using support for his stepbrother as a shield for his own. Dan knows it's a facade but he can't get over Serena's casual, effortless sunniness, as if she was just on an extended vacation this whole time.
As if nothing had changed.
Sometime around three in the morning, Dan gives up on sleep. He has a prescription to help the insomnia, because kids who live on the Upper East Side have prescriptions for everything, but he doesn’t like taking them. It feels like a failure, an inability to control himself and his body; he does the same thing when he's sick or has a headache, like it's nobler to reject medicated help.
He goes down to the kitchen to pick at Cece's fully-stocked shelves but instead gets started on the pile of dishes in the sink. He could never get used to leaving them around. The mindless repetitive action is calming and the sluicing rush of water drowns out his thoughts. Or it does until quiet footfalls and a quieter voice interrupt him.
"Dan?" Serena stands sleepily in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. "I heard you get up."
Her hair is in two braids and she's wearing an oversized gray t-shirt; she looks comfortable, and normal. It irritates Dan like her cheerful disposition at dinner had irritated him, even though he knows it's juvenile. She'd been gone so long he'd gotten used to the empty space and here she is sliding back into it as though she never left.
"Sorry to wake you," he says with more attitude than is really required. He begins to put away the dry dishes roughly, the tinkling and clattering disrupting the still nighttime quiet.
"Dan," she says again, only with a touch of exasperation this time. "You're mad, I get it."
Dan scoffs, "Oh, you get it, huh?"
Her lips purse but she steps into the room determinedly and takes a deep breath. "I know," she begins hesitantly. "I know you had…feelings for me and things got out of hand but I want it to be different now, I want us to be a real family –"
"Real fucked up."
But Serena barrels onward, "I've always thought of you as a brother."
"You have a funny way of showing it."
"Dan," she says sharply.
"Running away didn't undo it," Dan says just as sharply. "Pretending it didn't happen isn't going to work either."
Her cheeks go slightly red. "As far as I'm concerned, it didn't," she says. "That's not why I'm here."
Dan bites back his response. Then why are you?
They find out the next day.
Dan has always been difficult and reluctant when it came to embracing his new family, still thinking of them as new even though it has been nearly a decade since his father married Lily. Those eight years return to him in a rush while sitting in the living room that night after dinner – Christmases, birthdays, rolling their eyes at each other across breakfast tables, all the enforced family movie nights. It washes over Dan all at once because Cece has gathered them together so she can tell them she's dying.
Lily's gasp is so theatrical it circles back around to painful, but Serena has an expression of calm acceptance on her face, and she's holding Cece's hand in hers. Dan realizes that she already knows. That's why she's here. The grandmother she always loved best is dying and Dan has been sniping at her over something they both knew was a mistake as soon as it happened.
He hesitates outside her room that night before knocking. It's strange to do, stranger still to hear her voice beckoning him in – he'd gotten so used to that extra empty room. She's wrapped up in her comforter, computer open beside her, though she doesn't seem to be paying much attention to it. Her face is puffy and red, lashes wet, and when she sees it's Dan, she hastily wipes her cheeks.
"I'm sorry," he says. "About Cece, about…" He clears his throat.
"Me too," Serena says, and she manages to hold it together for half a moment before crumbling again. Dan goes to her automatically, response born from years of holding back her hair, fetching aspirin and water. "I didn't want to cry in front of Grandma, you know, because she hates it, and Mom was doing enough, plus Eric and Jenny…"
Dan listens and rubs her back, waits for her to cry herself out. There isn't much he can do except be there for her and he almost feels ashamed of how much he'd missed doing just that. Once she winds down, slumping into him exhaustedly, Dan starts to pull back, to excuse himself to his own room.
"Don't," Serena murmurs, voice small. "Stay."
Dan shakes his head slightly. "Serena…"
"I want you to," she says, face tear-streaked but gaze clear.
He really should know better by now.
Serena lays beside him in the dark room, fingers brushing the back of his hand. "Did you get taller?"
"Nah, I'm wearing lifts," Dan says, and Serena stifles unexpected laughter.
"I missed you," she says.
Dan's heart does a stupid thing. "I missed you too."
They're good at first, respecting of distances and resisting old habits. But it's going so well that they start to get comfortable, and comfort is where the danger lies. Serena can't seem to help leaning on Dan all the time: her head on his shoulder, her chest pressed against his back, her arms around him.
Blair, whose forgiveness is still being slowly won back, observes archly, "You treat Brooklyn more like a boyfriend than a brother."
Serena laughs, but the sound of it is brittle. She pulls her limbs back to herself, warmth disappearing as she slinks away. "Funny, B. You're really funny."
Every time she touches him Dan thinks of the wedding, the spurt of champagne drying on his skin, the strawberry taste of her mouth. After so long away he can't seem to get enough of looking at her, finding her somehow restrained since her return. It takes him too long to realize she hasn't been going out or drinking, taking pills or anything else.
"Oh, Humphrey," Blair adds, "Penelope's been asking about you. Bet you wish you hadn't done that, hm?"
Dan rolls his eyes and laughs it off, used to Blair's needling by now, but Serena looks between them with an unreadable expression. Dan puts it from his mind until the walk home, when Serena asks, "Are you seeing Penelope?"
He laughs instinctively, because he hadn't even remembered hooking up with her until Blair brought it up; he'd assumed Penelope had been just as eager to forget about it. "No, it was just… It was just a party, you know how those things are." Serena doesn't say anything so Dan just keeps talking. "It didn't mean anything. I guess you didn't, uh, look on Gossip Girl while you were gone? I've – There have been some girls. People. Some people." When she still doesn't say anything, arms crossed over her chest, he sighs. "What?"
"Nothing," Serena says, but her step picks up a little.
"What is it?"
"Nothing," she repeats, but then, "I guess I thought you were different."
The statement makes his skin prickle. "Different?"
"That you wouldn't treat girls like that," Serena says, fast, not looking at him.
There's an edge to his voice. "Like what?" But Serena only shrugs, so he defends, "Everyone does it. It's not like I'm lying to anyone. No one expects anything out of it, Penelope's just – she probably just doesn't want me to tell anyone because she's embarrassed about being seen with me."
She glances at him, softening. "I doubt that."
Dan drops his gaze. "What, was I supposed to wait?"
Serena gives him a sharp look, but then just quickens her pace.
That night he looks out his window just in time to watch her disappear into the pool, a flash of gold slicing through blue. It's the middle of the night. Dan had been contemplating his sleeping medication in between parts of The Post-Office Girl but it hadn't gotten him anywhere.
He knows what's going to happen. As soon as he chooses to go outside, he knows.
Serena's decision to go swimming appears to be a spontaneous one, because when she emerges – just as he's sliding the door shut – it's in a striped blue tank top and panties, wet fabric sticking to her heavily. When she meets his eyes, she bites her lip but doesn't seem shocked to see him. "Coming in?"
It feels inevitable, the whole thing feels inevitable, so Dan just nods before pulling his t-shirt over his head. It isn't too hot out and the water is cooler still, chill enough to send a ripple of gooseflesh up his arms. He drifts towards Serena, who looks faintly mermaidesque with her hair slicked back off her face and droplets clinging to her cheeks.
"This isn't why I came back," she says.
"I know," Dan says. "But it's why I wanted you to."
Her mouth is wet and tastes like salt – only very slightly of chlorine, that distinct sourness missing from the expansive pool on the Rhodes property that only gets used once a year when they visit. Even the water feels nicer than regular pools, softer. Dan acts like he wasn't raised with this kind of casual luxury because he went to the YMCA when he was a toddler, but in all honesty this is probably more familiar to him now than anything else.
The edge of the pool is under Dan's hands, rough and gritty, Serena caught between him and the tiled wall. She wraps her legs all the way around his waist, floating there against him, buoyed by the too-soft water. "Not outside," she says, and then she's out of his arms, pushing up onto dry land again, and holding out a hand to bring him out too. "Come on."
They leave wet footprints through the house and even go so far as pretending to return to their own rooms, just in case, before Dan steps through their shared bathroom. It's as effortless as if it were planned. Dan thinks maybe he's been planning this in his head the whole time.
Serena kisses him as soon as he's through the door, her skin clammy but quickly warming. They peel away drenched clothes, leaving them in soggy piles on the floor, and fall against Serena's satin coverlet. This is what he wanted last time without being able to admit it – to have her, all of her, all to himself without rushing it.
Dan doesn't know how many people he's fucked in the last year, only that it was more than he ever thought he would back when sex was still a terrifying secret club he hadn't been invited to. He's not sure how much he's really learned. Some things are practice (he'll probably last longer than thirty seconds) and some are trial and error (this girl Susie had a major hair-pulling thing, and Dan has been successful utilizing that more than he's failed). But none of it makes a difference right now, because this is Serena, who he wants so much it makes him dizzy and guilty and reckless.
"We just can't tell anyone," Serena gasps, fingers digging into his back. "No one can ever, ever know."
That much goes without saying.
Under the table, Serena's fingers tangle with Dan's, a secret practically out in the open, a metaphor. It's been going on for three weeks.
Mornings are a no-go; early afternoons are ideal; nights are always good. It's almost too easy to carry on together in the way they never openly promised they wouldn't, to grab moments and sneak around. Everyone is always busy with one thing or another and it's the summer, so for Dan and Serena there's a surplus of time. They still do the things they're supposed to do. They take care of their siblings and sit through family meals. Serena goes along to Cece's appointments. They attend the garden parties and galas and polo. They do everything they're supposed to do, and everything they aren't.
Early afternoon finds Jenny and Eric at the beach, Lily at the spa, Cece resting, Rufus locked away writing songs. That leaves several hours of uninterrupted time for Dan and Serena to pretend before giving in, sometimes laying out side by side at the pool or reading in the shade of the porch before someone brushes against someone else, on purpose or by accident. Then it's only too easy to slink upstairs and sink into bed.
Or in the middle of the night, after everyone's asleep, there'll be a telltale knock at a bedroom door and whoever is waiting beyond it, sleepless, will sigh and give in. It's an affair categorized by desperation in every direction, unable to resist and yet unable to stop.
But there will be at least one enforced break to whatever it is they're doing, when Dan and Jenny are shipped off to Hudson for the end of the summer, about as far from their life in the Hamptons as possible. And it's with that time ticking away that Serena is finally compelled to say out loud what they can't stop thinking: this is wrong.
She's sitting on the edge of his bed in her unbuttoned denim shorts without a shirt on, sweeping her hair into a ponytail. Her back is to Dan, tanned skin with distinct bikini lines, bisected by the sharp red racerback of her bra. "This is wrong, you know," she says, conversationally. "This is so wrong."
Sarcasm is quick on Dan's tongue (really, because I thought this was totally healthy) but he just lays there watching her, blue sheets around him, and doesn't say anything. What is there to say?
Serena pulls her knees up and rests her chin on them, still not looking at him. "I love Jenny," she says, in an abrupt turn Dan doesn't follow for a second. "I love her, I think she's so smart, I think she'll be trouble. I remember when you guys moved in, and she was just like this little doll I got to dress up and play with. I love Rufus too. I didn't want to, because I never liked the guys my mom went out with, but…" She shrugs. "I love that he always makes us dinner and always asks what I'm up to. He used to check my homework for me, when I did it. I didn't realize until I left, how much I… How much I counted on you guys. You too." Her face tilts just slightly, glancing at Dan over the curve of a golden shoulder. "I didn't realize how much I needed it."
"Needed what?"
"A family. My family." A hand comes up to brush her cheek. "I don't want to be that girl I was before."
Dan is quiet for a long moment before he asks, "What does that mean for us?" But he knows, just like he knew this couldn't go on forever and wasn't even sure if he wanted it to.
Serena shrugs again, though it's a less ambivalent gesture than it was before. "I think you going to Hudson will be good," she says. "We can talk when you're back."
"Yeah," Dan sighs, shifting in bed so he's turned away from her too. "We can talk then."
Hudson is uneventful, to say the least.
If nothing else, the sheer, unrelenting normalcy gives him perspective and room to breathe. This could have been his life: helping Alex in the studio where he does his carpentry, going grocery shopping for Allison, living a quiet suburban life with a big backyard and a dog. But it's not Dan's life; Dan's life is bigger and messier. He may be worse off where he is now but there really isn't anything he can do about it. It's like he told Serena that night in the kitchen that now feels so long ago: pretending and running are not going to undo what they did, especially not now.
He comes to no conclusions in his time away – or, rather, to no conclusions he wants to face. The right thing to do is stop it and move on but right does not account for all the ways Serena is under his skin now, like roots delving deep into the earth. The year without her is not something he would ever do again. He's not sure he could.
Allison decides she wants to do portraits of her children and Dan predictably chafes under the scrutiny. While there is something of the detached artist in the way she studies him, sprawled in an armchair, there is definitely something of the concerned mother too. After several long moments she says, "You grew up into such a serious young man," with the tone of someone who had anticipated a much different outcome.
Dan doesn't like the painting when it's done but he pretends for his mother's sake. He sees something in it, those oils on that canvas, that speaks to something secret, someone changed.
He grew up into such a serious young man.
Lily and Rufus are fit to bursting with excitement, gazing at each other over the long table in a way that is truly nausea-inducing. It's the first night Dan and Jenny are back and they've arrived to find their parents have some big announcement planned. "Renewing you vows?" Jenny guesses, unimpressed.
"Is Cece in remission?" Dan asks, and there is a flash of interesting guilt on both their faces.
Leaning back in her chair, Serena suggests, "Moving to Switzerland?" Her voice sounds dull and toneless.
"Giving up all our money to live as self-sacrificing monks?" Eric jokes, to which Lily replies with a tinkling laugh.
"Oh, no, nothing like that," Rufus says. "Lil, just tell them."
Lily looks into each of their blank faces in turn, smiling expectantly. "We're going to have a baby!" she exclaims. "I'm pregnant!"
For nearly a full thirty seconds the room is silent enough to hear a pin drop. Jenny is the first to recover and offer congratulations, with Eric following uncertainly. But Dan meets Serena's eyes across the table and finds a mirror of himself there. Another brother or sister, one they both have shares in. Their brother or sister, shared, joint.
We're fucked, Dan thinks, and then mouths it at Serena. She blinks and then laughs, a helpless low sound that makes Dan start laughing too – both of them totally fucked, sitting there in the midst of familial cheer.
Later they go up to the roof. Dan looks out at the city spread before them, distant and vague, and lights a joint. A moment later there is the weight of Serena's chin on his shoulder, the smell of her shampoo, her hair brushing his cheek. She plucks it from his lips and takes a drag.
dan/serena. 9k words. AU.
w:incest (though dan and serena are not blood-related), drunk teen sex, general malaise and ennui, other shady things probably
summary:Serena's not your sister, a voice in his head insists.
note: I started this fic back in 2012 (ikr) but somehow I lost my rhythm on it and it has been laying around ever since. It was originally inspired in part by The Royal Tenenbaums, hence the title, but really only vestiges of that remain. My main interest was in bb!wild!Serena and angsty!loner!Dan, but be warned this fic is relatively high on creep factor. Anyway, this is for
sing_song_sung, happy belated birthday!!!!!Dan's seventeen and it's the summer, his third in Southampton. He's staying at the house of a woman who is his grandmother by marriage, who pats his hair with French tipped talons and says he reminds her of her late husband. The third, she specifies.
He's waiting for the Hamptons Jitney to arrive, sitting on a bench with his moleskin open but untouched, one leg crossed over the other.
She's late, as usual.
She emerges from the bus with her usual light step, like she’s floating, and a timely gust of wind blows golden hair back off her shoulders. A bright smile is already widening on her face, turning her eyes into two cartoonish half-moons. She's got on red Converse high tops, tiny denim shorts, and a bikini top with a jacket over it. There's one bag slung across her chest and two more in either hand.
She stops a few feet from him. "Hi," Serena says, voice gentle and warm.
"Hey," he says softly, getting to his feet.
The space between them might as well be a gaping chasm.
Serena’s brother is how he comes to be known, no matter how many times he insists I’m not.
Dan’s parents get divorced when he’s seven and it’s fine, it’s cool, everyone deals with it and stays good friends. Dan and Jenny live with their mother in the loft they grew up in. Their father lives two stops away on the train and they see him every day. It’s almost like nothing has changed. Everything’s fine until it's not.
Dan’s father remarries first, to an icy blonde who shakes Dan’s hand upon first meeting him as though he is a peer and not a nine year old. It’s a perplexing experience, that handshake. She never says anything patronizing like you can call me mom if you want to, for which Dan is grateful. She simply introduces herself as Lily and then her eyes slide off him and Jenny as though they're just room decorations. The mere mention of Lily’s name is enough to make their mother’s jaw clench.
Lily has a massive townhouse on the Upper East Side and two children of her own, a girl Dan’s age and a boy Jenny’s, like some kind of freaky Brady Bunch matched set.
They see their dad slightly less. Jenny and their new stepbrother bond instantly, become glued to each other’s sides. Dan is jealous in an impossible-to-pinpoint way. He does not bond with Serena. Dan isn’t in the market for a new sister and, anyway, he’s learned from the old one that they’re nothing but trouble.
Everything’s fine until it isn’t. His mother meets Alex and marries him and Alex does say things like, “You know, kiddo, you can call me Dad if you want.” He makes their mother starry-eyed. Dan imagines blowing Alex up like something from a comic book.
The first time Dan cries throughout the entire shifting families ordeal – the divorce, the new kids, the abandoning of their tightknit little mother-father-daughter-son arrangement – is when his mother sits him and Jenny down to say they’re moving to Hudson. She can really paint there, she says, and she’s always wanted to be an artist, don’t they like Mommy’s paintings? And they’ll have fresh air and a backyard and a dog. A brand new start.
A brutal row erupts between his parents, and at the end of it Dan and Jenny move into Lily's townhouse. Their mother leaves the city. Jenny cries more than Dan and she’s the baby, so everyone coddles her.
It’s then that they really become a matched set, marched to school in identical uniforms – Dan, Serena, Eric, and Jenny, alternating dark and light heads bent into the wind, looking just like the family they aren’t.
Dan can handle exactly one week of that stonewalled prep school, full of carbon-copy kids who curl their lip at him for reasons none of them even understand yet. Dan handles a week of eating lunch alone and getting glared at when he answers questions right in class and getting his books smacked out of his hands in the halls before he cracks. He’d never suffered such indignities at public school, where he actually had friends and even if he hadn’t, nobody would have bothered him.
It takes a week, but he cracks and punches Chuck Bass in the face. He doesn’t regret it, even as the shocked stifled gasp ripples through the room and the teachers all rush to Chuck’s side. Blood blooms brightly on Chuck’s shirt, both hands held to his nose. Dan’s knuckles hurt.
He is sent to the office to wait for his father, sitting sullenly in a sturdy chair in the corner, kicking his legs back and forth. He doesn’t know how she heard or where she came from, but Serena is there, missing class. She sits next to him, sits on her hands as though she must to keep them still, waterfall of blonde hair over her eyes. “Is your dad here yet?” she asks. Her legs cross at the ankle. Her shoes are non-regulation sky blue Converse.
“Do you see him?” Dan snaps.
Serena bites her lip. “Chuck’s the worst,” she blurts a moment later. “He tried to look up my skirt the other day.”
Secretly appalled, Dan only shrugs.
“Everyone picked on him, before,” she continues. “He was new.”
Dan still doesn’t respond.
“I’ll wait with you,” Serena offers, and she does.
Serena’s brother is how they come to accept him, because everyone loves Serena.
“Oh, Serena, darling,” Lily says, like an afterthought. They’re at dinner. Lily is speaking to Serena but looking at Dan’s father, removing her glasses and letting them hang from the elegant gold chain around her neck, smiling flirtatiously. “Why don’t you take your brother to the party, hmm?”
They’ve settled on doing that for years now and Dan still hates it, dropping the step as though calling him her brother will make it so.
Serena is half-ready for said party, glitter shimmering golden down her arms and hair in messy curlicues that Lily's stylist had carefully hot-ironed.
She plays dumb, rolling her eyes. “Mom, I’m not bringing a kid to the party with me. Eric’s a baby, he’s too young.” In revenge, Eric flicks a pea at her that Serena bats away with a playful grin.
“You know what I meant,” Lily says, in that arch tone of hers. “You’d like to go, wouldn’t you, Daniel?”
“No,” Dan says, pushing his food around.
“Come on,” his dad cajoles. Concern is evident on his face. “You could use a little bit of fun.”
His dad has been worried about him for a while now, sharing low-voiced distant phone calls with his mom about how Dan is withdrawn, moody, not himself. Allison wants Dan to move in with her and Alex. Dan doesn't know what he wants.
So he gets dragged along to one of Serena’s friends’ stupid parties. He’s never gone before but he’s seen her stumble back from them, drunk and giggly, and he’s seen her spend the night vomiting. Sometimes her best friend Blair, the haughty brunette who never warmed to Dan, accompanies her, sighing heavy sighs Dan can feel in his chest as she cleans Serena up.
No one else seems to notice how Serena comes home drunk in the middle of the night and how that’s not quite right. Except maybe Eric, whose alert dark eyes Dan has met more than once they peer out of their rooms, wondering which one of them is going to go hold Serena’s hair while she barfs.
Serena wears a glittering dress to the party, too short over pitch-black tights and boots. Everything about her glitters and when she links arms with Dan she leaves gold sparkles all over his left side. Her smile is wide and beaming and white, shiny with lipgloss, and she tells him not to worry. Dan lies, says he never worries, and that makes Serena laugh, gold-tipped finger reaching out to smooth the furrowed knot between his eyebrows.
“I’ll be there the whole time,” she promises.
When they get there, Blair groans, unlatching from her boyfriend long enough to hug Serena tightly and grumble, “I can’t believe you brought Brooklyn with you.”
Brooklyn, a place he left six years ago and hasn’t been able to shake since.
He and Nate nod at each other, both used to tagging along with little to say.
“B, don’t be mean to my brother,” Serena says, turning her wide smile Dan’s way again and giving him a wink. Dan smiles back automatically and then flushes, knows there is something wrong about the way his stomach turns over, whooshes.
Dan is fifteen when he overhears a bunch of boys talking about his stepsister in the locker room. Serena van der Woodsen is so easy, they say, like they have any real idea of what that means yet, she'll do anything.
They know who Dan is and he's sitting close enough that they must realize. Dan doesn't know why he doesn't say anything; he's frozen, his spine tense. Dan's gotten into fights for less before. He and Chuck Bass practically have a standing start-of-the-year scuffle, so it's not like he's afraid to throw a punch.
I heard she fucked Carter Baizen at Graham Woods' party.
Dan's fingers tighten on the latch of his locker. If Nate were here he'd get into it with them, not out of temper but a sense of honor, because Nate is one of those stand-up guys.
Serena's reputation is not unfounded. But Dan knows that's no reason for anyone to talk about her like these boys are, his face getting progressively redder with anger and shame as he listens. Dan had gone to Graham Woods' party. He'd sat in the corner and smoked with Nate while Serena danced with half of St. Jude's, her arms up high and hair haloing her with every spin. Dan had seen her go off with Carter. She'd lost her top at some point earlier in the night and her bra was hot pink, a little too small, the strap riding up her back and tits swelling over the cups.
No one seemed to care much at the time, but the next day at school no one would shut up about it. At the time, Dan remembers thinking someone should do something, that Carter was too old, that Serena was too drunk, that the whole thing was just wrong. But Dan didn't move then and he doesn't move now, doesn't do anything except listen stock-still on the nights Serena brings boys and men home, sleeps with them either in her room or on her mother's sofa, sends them back out into the cold night before the sun dawns chilly yellow.
The boys' conversation slips further into vulgarities and Dan's honor finally kicks in, or something. He faces a week of suspension for the fight and when he is implored, first by teachers and the headmaster and then by his father, to explain why he lost it in the locker room, Dan only shrugs and looks away.
Later Serena tiptoes barefoot into his room and sits at the edge of his bed, her back to him. Warily, Dan tugs out one earbud and waits for her to speak.
"I heard about what happened," she says softly, glancing back over her shoulder at him. "What they said. And what you did."
Dan says nothing, teeth sinking into his lower lip to keep the words back.
"Thank you," she says.
"It wasn't right," Dan starts, falters. She turns towards him a little more. "Uh. For them to…say those things. About you. About anyone, but, uh – It just…wasn't right. You're not – um, you're – you're not what they…were saying." She's just a girl, like any other girl, except for all the ways she shines so brightly.
Serena looks at him, almost puzzled. "I like that you think that," she says finally, then gives him a sad smile and leaves.
Dan is fifteen and his stepsister's always been gorgeous but it has only just dawned on him.
Serena sits on the kitchen counter eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. Her hair is in two messy braids. She's wearing a cotton nightgown with skinny straps, light blue startling against her tan. Her feet swing bare against the cabinets, nails painted Barbie pink. With each tiny shifting movement her short nightgown rides a little higher on her thighs. Dan looks away.
Passing by her room on the way to his, her door not quite closed, Dan sees her release her hair from a clip and send it spilling down her back. She lifts her shirt over her head and unhooks her bra, her naked back hidden behind all that shining hair.
Dan's father is trying to institute a weekly family movie night that they all suffer through with sibling solidarity. Serena tucks a blanket around them all, her arm linked through Eric's and her head on Dan's shoulder. She wears a bulky sweater over possibly nothing, every so often wriggling around to tug on the end of the sweater, making sure it covers her ass even under the blanket. She smells sweet and fresh, and her happy laughter is close to Dan's ear. This is who he thinks of as the real Serena, not the smoke-scented loud-drunk girl who trips inside at two a.m.
Dan is stepping out of the shower when the door pushes in and Serena laughs, spinning around quickly and clapping a hand over her eyes. "Sorry, sorry," she says. "I lost my tie and I wanted to borrow your extra." Dan rolls his eyes affectionately and wraps a towel around his waist. Their ties aren't even the same. He tells her he's covered and she peeks around, smile sunny as ever. He moves past her to go get the tie and she pinches his wet side, teases, "Looking good, bro."
They're always knocking into each other, in hallways or the kitchen. Serena never looks where she's going and Dan is always distracted, book in his hand or homework waiting for him. They always end up in that stupid little laughing dance: one going to move around the other, who accidentally mirrors the movement, rinse, repeat. Once he turns into the kitchen just as she steps out and is doused in orange juice for his trouble. All apologies, Serena grabs a dishtowel to fruitlessly dab at it, and Dan knows he does not imagine the way her hands linger, her eyes linger, just as he knows what he's doing when he wraps a hand around her wrist to gently push her back but doesn't let go until a long moment has passed.
Sometimes she comes in to sit on the edge of his bed as he does his work and listens to music. At first, he hadn't been able to get anything done, only pretending to write his essay while he stared at her back instead, Elliott Smith punctuating the moment with a painful wistfulness. She reads magazines or talks on the phone to Blair, careless of Dan hearing her gossip. She reclines along the foot of his bed, leaves golden hairs on his sheets; bored, on her back, she kicks her legs up, chatting away as she examines her pedicure, skirt falling back. Dan shuts his eyes and counts to ten, which is what the Lily-prescribed therapist told him to do whenever his anger flares up, but he's found it works in other situations too.
At night he finds it's harder to push the images of Serena out of his mind – Serena's skin, Serena's thighs, Serena's shoulders touched by her beautiful hair, Serena's tits always seeming poorly contained by her clothing, Serena's bright shiny smile, the thoughtful tilt to Serena's head as she talks, as she listens.
Their parents think it's wonderful that they're finally so close.
Serena is wearing a dress that's got to be illegal somewhere, red and tight and strappy, revealing a long strip of sternum. It cuts off high on her thighs, leaving about eight miles of long tan leg until it hits metallic heels. Dan thinks he could probably see her internal organs if he squinted.
She fluffs her hair, looking into the mirror by the elevator. "Like it?" she asks, giving Dan a playful eyebrow raise. He drops his gaze even as he smiles, looking at the book in his hands but unable to see any of the text in it clearly. She teases him, "Don't wait up."
"I always do," he says automatically, without meaning to, and flushes with embarrassment.
But Serena doesn't look at him like he has anything to be embarrassed about. She looks all soft, almost serious. "I know," she says. "I know you do."
It's a bad habit Dan has developed. It used to be waking up when he heard the door but now he's unable to fall asleep without hearing her heels on the hardwood, the click of her door pulling shut for the night. Some nights she doesn't come home at all, and Dan twists fitfully until he falls into an uneasy sleep. Sometimes Blair texts him to say that Serena's with her. Sometimes she doesn't.
Tonight the front door slides open on the other side of four a.m. and the quiet shuffle of Serena's bare feet carries across the living room and up the stairs. It passes by her door and stops in front of Dan's. The knob swivels and then there's Serena. "Hey," she says. Even standing there she weaves a little.
Dan nods at her. "Uh, how was the party?"
Serena only shrugs. "Take off your shirt."
Surprise must register on his face but neither of them say anything. She's seen him without his shirt plenty of times - in pools, around the house - but it feels different when she requests it and his skin prickles as he pulls it over his head. He's just wearing boxers now, not even nice ones. But she just looks at him, her eyes a little glassy-drunk, skin a little shiny with sweat, hair a little flat, overall a little decompressed after her night at the club.
She drifts over to sit beside him, tucking her legs under her. The door is still open. Slow with sleep, Dan wonders if he is in fact dreaming as Serena's fingertips traipse over his chest, nails chipped but nevertheless filed into perfect, identical ovals thanks to weekly manicures. "You're so nice," she murmurs, "To me."
She touches his stomach, palm pressing. "I'm, uh, I'm a nice guy," he says, lamely.
Serena smiles. "I've never ¬–"
"Serena, did I hear you come in?"
They both jump out of their skin, Dan yanking his blankets higher and Serena hopping to her feet. "Yeah, Mom," she calls back, irritation in her voice. "I'm home!"
"Well go to bed, darling, you have school tomorrow!"
Serena rolls her eyes.
"That's Lily," Dan says. "She mothers once every seventeen years, like locusts."
A stifled laugh twists Serena's mouth. Maybe it's for the best, they both think and don't say. "Goodnight, Dan," Serena says, leaning in to press a light kiss to his cheek, leaving lipgloss behind.
He catches her hand before she moves away, squeezes her fingers. "Night, Serena," he says softly.
"I hate weddings," Serena says and then punctuates it with five shots in a row, all procured by flirting with the bartender.
It’s the wedding of someone's cousin to someone's cousin, the kind of event that seems to happen constantly since Dan became a tagalong to the rich kids – became one of the rich kids – only most of the time he can get out of attending. School is mandatory but bearable; the parties he goes to only when Serena expressly asks. This is like some heinous prom precursor, everyone from school here in formalwear sneaking drinks under their parents' less-than-watchful eyes.
At some point Nate gets so drunk that he starts telling Dan about this horse he had when he was a kid, hand gripping Dan's jacket as though the information is urgent. Dan cannot tell if it is supposed to be a metaphor. He nods and mhm's, wondering who on earth has their own horse until he remembers Serena does too, at some farm, and its name is Snowflake. The thought makes him look around for her but she's nowhere to be found in the sparkling crowd. He sees Jenny looking fit to burst with happiness in her floaty pink dress, some boy chatting her up. She sips champagne like its something she does every single day. Dan's gaze finds Eric not too far away from her, so he doesn't worry. Jenny's taken to this life like Dan knows he never will and it makes Dan resentful of her, jealous of her, angry with her.
She's just a kid, though. She's just doing what kids do. Dan is only sixteen but he thinks he's already old, past the point of having champagne fun.
Blair appears as Blair tends to appear, a swooping vindictive presence beneath a layer of crackling sugar. Her smile is fixed but her gait reflects clear irritation as she shoots like a bullet through the crowd, directly towards Nate and Dan. Once again she and Dan are the only sober ones at the party, something they both recognize and both choose not to address.
"Go take care of Serena," Blair snaps, nary a greeting to be found. "I've got Nate." She unhooks Nate's fingers from Dan's jacket.
"I don't know where she is," Dan says.
Blair rolls her eyes, pure impatience as she pushes Nate away, sloppy drunk and trying to kiss her. "Then find her." Dan always feels there's a threatening edge whenever Blair Waldorf speaks to him, a silent or else.
Dan emerges into the lobby, leaving the loud reception behind. He doesn't know where to start – the bathrooms, maybe – and walks slowly down the wide hotel hallway, crowd thinning as he goes. He hears Serena before he sees her, her off-key alcoholic singing echoing over the distant sounds of blaring Top 40's. Her voice leads him into an empty room, maybe a ballroom, some wide expanse with a polished bar at one end. She's there, rifling behind it for booze.
"Dan!" she exclaims happily. "Dan, I'm craving mojitos, come help –" Then she starts in on another verse, her singing so utterly toneless that it makes Dan smile.
"I think you've had more than enough," he says, approaching her with his hands in his pockets.
Serena sticks out her tongue. "No such thing. Ooh, champagne!"
She sets the bottle on the bar and swings herself up after it. She's barefoot. The sun filtering in from the high windows lights her up, her golden dress and golden hair and golden skin, makes her all a-flame for a minute.
His notebook is in the pocket of his jacket, which he left on the back of his chair in the reception hall before setting out, so he'll have to remember this.
"Dan," she sing-songs. She holds the bottle out to him, legs folding as she takes a seat. "Help me."
Dan sighs. "You shouldn't drink more. Your mom'll be pissed."
"She doesn't care," Serena says. There's no emotion attached to it – casual, like commenting on the weather. Her mother doesn't care that her fifteen-year-old daughter is drunk and getting drunker. And, really, it's the truth. "Open it. Pleeeeease, come on, Dan, have some fun for –"
"Blair will be pissed," he tries, more sternly. That should at least carry weight. "And she'll blame me when –"
Serena grabs his tie, loose around his neck, and tugs him over. She presses a finger to his lips, murmurs, "I won't tell if you don't."
Her eager, pretty eyes; so blue. Dan will have to remember that too. Fine, he thinks. He'll help.
The champagne pops between them with a frothy spill, covering their hands. Serena laughs, head tipped back, a bright sound. She presses the cool lip of the bottle to Dan's mouth and tips it up so champagne fizzes over his tongue. He swallows it like water, swallows and swallows until he's dizzy, and then pulls away abruptly. A wayward gush splashes between them, soaking into Dan's shirt, before she rights the bottle again.
"We should go back," Dan says, a call to responsibility he can never quite quell. His brow furrows, he frowns; he does everything but wring his hands. Serena's champagne-sticky hand is on his cheek, her forehead against his forehead as she brings the bottle to her lips. Dan watches her throat working in a swallow.
His head isn't clearing at all, just going soft and cloudy like falling asleep. Soft like Serena's voice as she says, "You're so nice. I've never met anyone so nice."
"Well, I guess we're…" Family is what he's about to say, but they're not that, they're not family. They're family only in the most technical sense of it. They have breakfast together every morning and dinner together most nights. He grew up down the hall from her. He's seen her at her embarrassing worst, her hair in a topknot and facemask drying to a cracked green on her skin. He takes care of her when she's sick, which is just mom-code for hungover. He walks with her to school when she actually goes. Jenny calls Eric her brother but Dan refuses to accept it, refuses to let Serena be his sister. She's not, she can't be, because people aren't supposed to look at their sisters the way Dan looks at Serena.
"We're?" Serena repeats gently.
"We're –" he starts again, loses his words again, and then it doesn't matter anyway, because Serena's mouth is on his and his brain goes blank trying to justify that. The kiss is fierce, rushed – hardly the poetic musings he'd entertained late at night, imagining their heads tilting together like something in a movie trailer, music swelling. It's nothing like that. Her mouth crashes into his and the hazy atmosphere splits down the middle, cracks and will never be the same.
There is so much of her, she's everywhere. Her lipgloss tastes like strawberries. He presses his face to her neck, salt-sweet and perfume hot, and can't catch his breath. He's never kissed anyone before, and he feels ashamed of that, that innocence. Dan thinks they can still stop and probably continue to be as normal as normal can be; they're tipsy enough and fucked up enough that it can be suppressed. They can stop right now and keep pretending, go on pretending.
So he harnesses every last shred of his willpower and pulls away from her. "Blair told me to find you," he says. "So I did." He meets her eyes, which are hurt and betrayed. "And now we should go back."
She looks extinguished, suddenly, and sober. Her mouth is twisted, unhappy.
"I'm sorry," Dan says automatically, but Serena simply slips off the bar and moves past him.
She ignores him for the rest of the night, dancing with Blair and the other girls, flirting with Hazel Williams' young stepfather. But when the reception draws to a close, she comes home instead of going out, makes tea and curls up on the couch with a huge slice of pure white wedding cake. Everyone else drifts off to bed except for her and Dan, sitting on either side of the sofa and not speaking.
"Want some?"
Dan starts, but Serena is only holding out the plate, expression guileless if a little subdued. He shakes his head.
"C'mon, have some." She shifts over, her knees pressing now against the outside of his thigh, and holds out a forkful expectantly. The bodice of her gold dress has twisted around her slightly, a little akimbo, and the chiffon skirt fans around her legs, pale gold deepening to a dark autumnal shade in the folds.
Dan gives in, leaning forward to accept the mouthful, sugary cake melting on his tongue, frosting thick and vanilla. He swallows hard. He has a feeling that he knows what she's doing and sure enough her fingers brush a real-or-imagined crumb from his mouth, her eyes focused on his lips intently before she moves closer and kisses him.
She's not your sister, he tells himself. She is not your sister.
She gets into his lap, curling her hands in a shirt still stiff with dried champagne, and kisses him harder, catches his lower lip in her teeth. This is wrong, he thinks as he grips her waist, as he grabs her hair. Serena a whirling force to which Dan's stillness can only bend.
This is so wrong.
Brain not working as fast as it ought to be, Dan catches on two seconds too late as she yanks his belt open, his zipper, her hand closing around him ¬–
"I want to, do you want to?" Serena murmurs, mouth sugar-sweet on his. What else can he do but nod? He's in her hands, figuratively and literally, a cringing pun.
They move together on the couch in the living room, hushing each other, burying mouths against shoulders when the sounds become impossible to stifle any other way. Serena whimpers, startlingly loud in the hush, and it makes Dan groan; her hand slides over his mouth and he returns the favor, covering hers.
But it's over abruptly. He's almost incredulous that that's it, that's already it. The beating of his heart echoes all throughout his body; he can feel Serena's pulse underneath his lips, but maybe it's just his own. He didn't touch her enough. He barely touched her at all, and now it's over.
Dan breathes against her collarbone until Serena pushes herself away, standing on unsteady legs. "I –" Dan starts. "We should –"
"I'm going to go meet Georgina," Serena interrupts. She twists her dress around so it's lying right again and pushes her hair out of her eyes. "I don't know when I'll be back. If anyone asks, say I'm with Blair."
They both know no one will ask.
"Okay," Dan says, because he doesn't know what else to say. She doesn't look at him as she grabs her clutch and her shoes, barreling towards the elevators, vanishing from the dim apartment.
He just sits there, alone and rumpled and half-undressed. Not a virgin.
Dan is sixteen when they sleep together, and sixteen when Serena runs away.
She's gone a year, one entire year that sees all the changes of the seasons. Dan calls her until her phone is disconnected.
"I had no idea she was even considering it," Lily says to Dan's father, as though what Serena did was remarkable instead of messed up. "I'd brought home the brochures but she never wanted to look at them. It'll be good for her. I always said boarding school would be good for her."
She left the night of the wedding and hasn't spoken to anyone except her mother since, which on its own is enough of a sign that something is wrong. Dan is repulsed by how easily everyone goes on without Serena here, barely missing a step. The girls at school rearrange around Blair. Nate gets a little more sullen. Lily seems freed of a burden. Eric seems worried like Dan is worried, but neither of them say anything.
The feeling he had that night never dissipates. Instead it seems to settle into his bones. The abruptness of their coupling paired with the abruptness of her departure has left Dan in some kind of arrested fog he can't seem to shake off.
Blair's the only one who gets it, he thinks. Everyone's caught up in the mystery of Serena leaving but they don't really care. It's just another story. But Dan looks at Blair and sees the same acute longing, missing Serena.
In the year Serena is gone, Dan starts going to parties, returning home drunk and morose. He becomes as popular as he's probably ever going to get; who knew the secret to that was total willing self-destruction, allowing anyone to do anything to you without caring? He hooks up with a lot of people. He develops a regular drink that stops tasting weird to him after awhile. One weekend the whole family goes away so Dan allows a party to be thrown at the townhouse, though he escapes from it a few hours in. He goes upstairs, trailing fingertips along the wall as he passes door after door until he reaches Serena's.
The maid has cleaned up since Serena left so her room is spotless in a way it never was before. Her clothes are freshly pressed in the closet. Her shoes are lined up on the floor. Even her computer waits, hooked up to the charger and pulsing with light because no one has thought to turn it off. Dan picks up a bottle of perfume from her abandoned collection and releases a cloud of it into the room, soft and flowery. He feels a pang he hadn't quite anticipated.
"Jesus, Humphrey."
Dan jumps at the soft exclamation, turning to see Blair in the doorway of Serena's bathroom. "I didn't know anyone was in here."
"Lurker," she accuses, but it's lacking her usual punch. When he looks closer he sees that her eyes are red-rimmed.
He frowns. "Are you okay?"
She glares at him, but again it seems diminished somehow. "Yes," she says, but then surprises Dan by sitting beside him on the end of the bed. Her fingers curl in her skirt. "You haven't heard from her, have you?"
"No," he says.
"I keep thinking…" Blair frowns, mouth a hard little line. "We had a fight at the wedding, you know, and I keep thinking this is something I did – that she's punishing me, or something."
"Serena doesn't have it in her to punish anyone," Dan says. As sure as he knows that Serena leaving is his fault, he knows that Serena probably thinks it's hers. "You didn't do anything, Blair."
She looks at him, face softening reluctantly, eyes sad. "How do you know?"
Dan sighs a little, reaching up impulsively to push her hair behind her ear. "I just know," he says.
The moment lasts one inappropriate second too long. Blair's lips part as she takes a quick breath. Dan's mouth fits easily with hers, unthinkingly, a gentle silent kiss that they both chicken out of halfway through. He looks away, and so does she.
Then her fingers are tilting his face back, are climbing into his hair, and they kiss again, more assuredly.
"I haven't –" Blair says as they fall back onto the bed; she's pulling at his shirt, hurried and impatient.
"It's okay," Dan says, kissing her hard, and lies, "I haven't either."
After everyone has left and the house is littered with bottles, cups, and cigarette butts, Dan sits on the floor finishing off a joint and a fifth of vodka. The house feels very empty, and very large.
"I fucked my sister," he tells the empty room.
The room does not react and the world doesn't end, but the well-trained voice in Dan's head tries to reassert that Serena is not his sister, not in the ways that count. Not blood. Just time and love and trust and shared space – just all the other ways.
He doesn't sleep that night, instead spending the remaining hours until dawn scouring the house until it's picture-perfect again. The idea of the maid having to clean up after his carelessness is too guilt-inducing. It's his mess, and he should be the one looking after it.
Once afternoon hits he finally looks in the mirror, finding his reflection wan and distorted. Dan runs a hand over his face and then his hair, overlong and bedraggled. A scissor glints from the countertop, left there after some quick practical task – sniping tags on Lily-sanctioned clothes, maybe. On impulse he picks it up, pulls one curl of hair straight and snips it close to the root, and then does so with another, and another, until his hair litters the sink and the tiles and his clothes.
Dan is seventeen and it's the summer, his third in Southampton. It promises to be long, lonely, and parched. One morning like any other, Lily is excusing herself early (places to be, spas to go to) when she says, "Daniel, dear, could you get Serena from the jitney? She'll be coming in in an hour or so. Someone really ought to meet her, and I have a massage booked."
For a minute Dan just carries on having his breakfast as though he hadn't heard her at all, and then slowly her words reach him. He puts down his toast. "Serena?" he repeats, like her name is a foreign word. "Serena's back?"
He suspects it's a hoax right up until he's watching Serena sail towards him with that familiar sad smile. Her face seems thinner, older. Different.
"Hi," she says.
"Hey," Dan answers.
Serena reaches over and rubs a hand over his buzzed head, a gesture so startlingly intimate that he almost flinches. "This is new."
It isn't, really; he's been keeping it this way since his post-party crisis, which was months ago. But he nods and confirms it, because what difference does it make?
"I liked it before," she says softly.
Dan doesn't respond to that, instead reaching for one of her bags. Their hands touch, spark; the duffle hits the sidewalk with a dull thud as they both jerk back. They keep the breadth of the pavement between them when they head home, Dan walking the curb like a tightrope.
"How's Eric?" Serena asks, a little anxiously, fingers twisting in the fringe on her jacket. "Is he mad at me? How's Jenny?"
Dan shrugs. "Fine. Everyone's fine."
Serena nods and smiles but she looks a little stung nonetheless. Everyone's fine means without you. "That's good."
"Yeah…" Dan shoves his hands deep in his pockets. His next words come out in a rush. "Why are you here?" Serena blinks, looking very stung then. "Now, I mean. Why now?"
She doesn't answer, and then deflects, bridging their gap so she can stick her arm through his. "I was craving gelato the whole bus ride," she says, like nothing has changed. "Is that place still around, the one Jenny was, like, obsessed with?"
Dan is stony for a moment, frowning, but he gives in. Of course he does. "Yeah. Yeah, it's still around."
Dinner that night is a tense, awkward affair – Lily, Cece, and Serena doing their best to fill the room up with false chatter while Eric and Dan are sullen, Rufus and Jenny caught in the middle. Eric is mad at Serena, as it turns out, and even though Dan is at least half to blame for her leaving, he takes comfort in Eric's anger, using support for his stepbrother as a shield for his own. Dan knows it's a facade but he can't get over Serena's casual, effortless sunniness, as if she was just on an extended vacation this whole time.
As if nothing had changed.
Sometime around three in the morning, Dan gives up on sleep. He has a prescription to help the insomnia, because kids who live on the Upper East Side have prescriptions for everything, but he doesn’t like taking them. It feels like a failure, an inability to control himself and his body; he does the same thing when he's sick or has a headache, like it's nobler to reject medicated help.
He goes down to the kitchen to pick at Cece's fully-stocked shelves but instead gets started on the pile of dishes in the sink. He could never get used to leaving them around. The mindless repetitive action is calming and the sluicing rush of water drowns out his thoughts. Or it does until quiet footfalls and a quieter voice interrupt him.
"Dan?" Serena stands sleepily in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. "I heard you get up."
Her hair is in two braids and she's wearing an oversized gray t-shirt; she looks comfortable, and normal. It irritates Dan like her cheerful disposition at dinner had irritated him, even though he knows it's juvenile. She'd been gone so long he'd gotten used to the empty space and here she is sliding back into it as though she never left.
"Sorry to wake you," he says with more attitude than is really required. He begins to put away the dry dishes roughly, the tinkling and clattering disrupting the still nighttime quiet.
"Dan," she says again, only with a touch of exasperation this time. "You're mad, I get it."
Dan scoffs, "Oh, you get it, huh?"
Her lips purse but she steps into the room determinedly and takes a deep breath. "I know," she begins hesitantly. "I know you had…feelings for me and things got out of hand but I want it to be different now, I want us to be a real family –"
"Real fucked up."
But Serena barrels onward, "I've always thought of you as a brother."
"You have a funny way of showing it."
"Dan," she says sharply.
"Running away didn't undo it," Dan says just as sharply. "Pretending it didn't happen isn't going to work either."
Her cheeks go slightly red. "As far as I'm concerned, it didn't," she says. "That's not why I'm here."
Dan bites back his response. Then why are you?
They find out the next day.
Dan has always been difficult and reluctant when it came to embracing his new family, still thinking of them as new even though it has been nearly a decade since his father married Lily. Those eight years return to him in a rush while sitting in the living room that night after dinner – Christmases, birthdays, rolling their eyes at each other across breakfast tables, all the enforced family movie nights. It washes over Dan all at once because Cece has gathered them together so she can tell them she's dying.
Lily's gasp is so theatrical it circles back around to painful, but Serena has an expression of calm acceptance on her face, and she's holding Cece's hand in hers. Dan realizes that she already knows. That's why she's here. The grandmother she always loved best is dying and Dan has been sniping at her over something they both knew was a mistake as soon as it happened.
He hesitates outside her room that night before knocking. It's strange to do, stranger still to hear her voice beckoning him in – he'd gotten so used to that extra empty room. She's wrapped up in her comforter, computer open beside her, though she doesn't seem to be paying much attention to it. Her face is puffy and red, lashes wet, and when she sees it's Dan, she hastily wipes her cheeks.
"I'm sorry," he says. "About Cece, about…" He clears his throat.
"Me too," Serena says, and she manages to hold it together for half a moment before crumbling again. Dan goes to her automatically, response born from years of holding back her hair, fetching aspirin and water. "I didn't want to cry in front of Grandma, you know, because she hates it, and Mom was doing enough, plus Eric and Jenny…"
Dan listens and rubs her back, waits for her to cry herself out. There isn't much he can do except be there for her and he almost feels ashamed of how much he'd missed doing just that. Once she winds down, slumping into him exhaustedly, Dan starts to pull back, to excuse himself to his own room.
"Don't," Serena murmurs, voice small. "Stay."
Dan shakes his head slightly. "Serena…"
"I want you to," she says, face tear-streaked but gaze clear.
He really should know better by now.
Serena lays beside him in the dark room, fingers brushing the back of his hand. "Did you get taller?"
"Nah, I'm wearing lifts," Dan says, and Serena stifles unexpected laughter.
"I missed you," she says.
Dan's heart does a stupid thing. "I missed you too."
They're good at first, respecting of distances and resisting old habits. But it's going so well that they start to get comfortable, and comfort is where the danger lies. Serena can't seem to help leaning on Dan all the time: her head on his shoulder, her chest pressed against his back, her arms around him.
Blair, whose forgiveness is still being slowly won back, observes archly, "You treat Brooklyn more like a boyfriend than a brother."
Serena laughs, but the sound of it is brittle. She pulls her limbs back to herself, warmth disappearing as she slinks away. "Funny, B. You're really funny."
Every time she touches him Dan thinks of the wedding, the spurt of champagne drying on his skin, the strawberry taste of her mouth. After so long away he can't seem to get enough of looking at her, finding her somehow restrained since her return. It takes him too long to realize she hasn't been going out or drinking, taking pills or anything else.
"Oh, Humphrey," Blair adds, "Penelope's been asking about you. Bet you wish you hadn't done that, hm?"
Dan rolls his eyes and laughs it off, used to Blair's needling by now, but Serena looks between them with an unreadable expression. Dan puts it from his mind until the walk home, when Serena asks, "Are you seeing Penelope?"
He laughs instinctively, because he hadn't even remembered hooking up with her until Blair brought it up; he'd assumed Penelope had been just as eager to forget about it. "No, it was just… It was just a party, you know how those things are." Serena doesn't say anything so Dan just keeps talking. "It didn't mean anything. I guess you didn't, uh, look on Gossip Girl while you were gone? I've – There have been some girls. People. Some people." When she still doesn't say anything, arms crossed over her chest, he sighs. "What?"
"Nothing," Serena says, but her step picks up a little.
"What is it?"
"Nothing," she repeats, but then, "I guess I thought you were different."
The statement makes his skin prickle. "Different?"
"That you wouldn't treat girls like that," Serena says, fast, not looking at him.
There's an edge to his voice. "Like what?" But Serena only shrugs, so he defends, "Everyone does it. It's not like I'm lying to anyone. No one expects anything out of it, Penelope's just – she probably just doesn't want me to tell anyone because she's embarrassed about being seen with me."
She glances at him, softening. "I doubt that."
Dan drops his gaze. "What, was I supposed to wait?"
Serena gives him a sharp look, but then just quickens her pace.
That night he looks out his window just in time to watch her disappear into the pool, a flash of gold slicing through blue. It's the middle of the night. Dan had been contemplating his sleeping medication in between parts of The Post-Office Girl but it hadn't gotten him anywhere.
He knows what's going to happen. As soon as he chooses to go outside, he knows.
Serena's decision to go swimming appears to be a spontaneous one, because when she emerges – just as he's sliding the door shut – it's in a striped blue tank top and panties, wet fabric sticking to her heavily. When she meets his eyes, she bites her lip but doesn't seem shocked to see him. "Coming in?"
It feels inevitable, the whole thing feels inevitable, so Dan just nods before pulling his t-shirt over his head. It isn't too hot out and the water is cooler still, chill enough to send a ripple of gooseflesh up his arms. He drifts towards Serena, who looks faintly mermaidesque with her hair slicked back off her face and droplets clinging to her cheeks.
"This isn't why I came back," she says.
"I know," Dan says. "But it's why I wanted you to."
Her mouth is wet and tastes like salt – only very slightly of chlorine, that distinct sourness missing from the expansive pool on the Rhodes property that only gets used once a year when they visit. Even the water feels nicer than regular pools, softer. Dan acts like he wasn't raised with this kind of casual luxury because he went to the YMCA when he was a toddler, but in all honesty this is probably more familiar to him now than anything else.
The edge of the pool is under Dan's hands, rough and gritty, Serena caught between him and the tiled wall. She wraps her legs all the way around his waist, floating there against him, buoyed by the too-soft water. "Not outside," she says, and then she's out of his arms, pushing up onto dry land again, and holding out a hand to bring him out too. "Come on."
They leave wet footprints through the house and even go so far as pretending to return to their own rooms, just in case, before Dan steps through their shared bathroom. It's as effortless as if it were planned. Dan thinks maybe he's been planning this in his head the whole time.
Serena kisses him as soon as he's through the door, her skin clammy but quickly warming. They peel away drenched clothes, leaving them in soggy piles on the floor, and fall against Serena's satin coverlet. This is what he wanted last time without being able to admit it – to have her, all of her, all to himself without rushing it.
Dan doesn't know how many people he's fucked in the last year, only that it was more than he ever thought he would back when sex was still a terrifying secret club he hadn't been invited to. He's not sure how much he's really learned. Some things are practice (he'll probably last longer than thirty seconds) and some are trial and error (this girl Susie had a major hair-pulling thing, and Dan has been successful utilizing that more than he's failed). But none of it makes a difference right now, because this is Serena, who he wants so much it makes him dizzy and guilty and reckless.
"We just can't tell anyone," Serena gasps, fingers digging into his back. "No one can ever, ever know."
That much goes without saying.
Under the table, Serena's fingers tangle with Dan's, a secret practically out in the open, a metaphor. It's been going on for three weeks.
Mornings are a no-go; early afternoons are ideal; nights are always good. It's almost too easy to carry on together in the way they never openly promised they wouldn't, to grab moments and sneak around. Everyone is always busy with one thing or another and it's the summer, so for Dan and Serena there's a surplus of time. They still do the things they're supposed to do. They take care of their siblings and sit through family meals. Serena goes along to Cece's appointments. They attend the garden parties and galas and polo. They do everything they're supposed to do, and everything they aren't.
Early afternoon finds Jenny and Eric at the beach, Lily at the spa, Cece resting, Rufus locked away writing songs. That leaves several hours of uninterrupted time for Dan and Serena to pretend before giving in, sometimes laying out side by side at the pool or reading in the shade of the porch before someone brushes against someone else, on purpose or by accident. Then it's only too easy to slink upstairs and sink into bed.
Or in the middle of the night, after everyone's asleep, there'll be a telltale knock at a bedroom door and whoever is waiting beyond it, sleepless, will sigh and give in. It's an affair categorized by desperation in every direction, unable to resist and yet unable to stop.
But there will be at least one enforced break to whatever it is they're doing, when Dan and Jenny are shipped off to Hudson for the end of the summer, about as far from their life in the Hamptons as possible. And it's with that time ticking away that Serena is finally compelled to say out loud what they can't stop thinking: this is wrong.
She's sitting on the edge of his bed in her unbuttoned denim shorts without a shirt on, sweeping her hair into a ponytail. Her back is to Dan, tanned skin with distinct bikini lines, bisected by the sharp red racerback of her bra. "This is wrong, you know," she says, conversationally. "This is so wrong."
Sarcasm is quick on Dan's tongue (really, because I thought this was totally healthy) but he just lays there watching her, blue sheets around him, and doesn't say anything. What is there to say?
Serena pulls her knees up and rests her chin on them, still not looking at him. "I love Jenny," she says, in an abrupt turn Dan doesn't follow for a second. "I love her, I think she's so smart, I think she'll be trouble. I remember when you guys moved in, and she was just like this little doll I got to dress up and play with. I love Rufus too. I didn't want to, because I never liked the guys my mom went out with, but…" She shrugs. "I love that he always makes us dinner and always asks what I'm up to. He used to check my homework for me, when I did it. I didn't realize until I left, how much I… How much I counted on you guys. You too." Her face tilts just slightly, glancing at Dan over the curve of a golden shoulder. "I didn't realize how much I needed it."
"Needed what?"
"A family. My family." A hand comes up to brush her cheek. "I don't want to be that girl I was before."
Dan is quiet for a long moment before he asks, "What does that mean for us?" But he knows, just like he knew this couldn't go on forever and wasn't even sure if he wanted it to.
Serena shrugs again, though it's a less ambivalent gesture than it was before. "I think you going to Hudson will be good," she says. "We can talk when you're back."
"Yeah," Dan sighs, shifting in bed so he's turned away from her too. "We can talk then."
Hudson is uneventful, to say the least.
If nothing else, the sheer, unrelenting normalcy gives him perspective and room to breathe. This could have been his life: helping Alex in the studio where he does his carpentry, going grocery shopping for Allison, living a quiet suburban life with a big backyard and a dog. But it's not Dan's life; Dan's life is bigger and messier. He may be worse off where he is now but there really isn't anything he can do about it. It's like he told Serena that night in the kitchen that now feels so long ago: pretending and running are not going to undo what they did, especially not now.
He comes to no conclusions in his time away – or, rather, to no conclusions he wants to face. The right thing to do is stop it and move on but right does not account for all the ways Serena is under his skin now, like roots delving deep into the earth. The year without her is not something he would ever do again. He's not sure he could.
Allison decides she wants to do portraits of her children and Dan predictably chafes under the scrutiny. While there is something of the detached artist in the way she studies him, sprawled in an armchair, there is definitely something of the concerned mother too. After several long moments she says, "You grew up into such a serious young man," with the tone of someone who had anticipated a much different outcome.
Dan doesn't like the painting when it's done but he pretends for his mother's sake. He sees something in it, those oils on that canvas, that speaks to something secret, someone changed.
He grew up into such a serious young man.
Lily and Rufus are fit to bursting with excitement, gazing at each other over the long table in a way that is truly nausea-inducing. It's the first night Dan and Jenny are back and they've arrived to find their parents have some big announcement planned. "Renewing you vows?" Jenny guesses, unimpressed.
"Is Cece in remission?" Dan asks, and there is a flash of interesting guilt on both their faces.
Leaning back in her chair, Serena suggests, "Moving to Switzerland?" Her voice sounds dull and toneless.
"Giving up all our money to live as self-sacrificing monks?" Eric jokes, to which Lily replies with a tinkling laugh.
"Oh, no, nothing like that," Rufus says. "Lil, just tell them."
Lily looks into each of their blank faces in turn, smiling expectantly. "We're going to have a baby!" she exclaims. "I'm pregnant!"
For nearly a full thirty seconds the room is silent enough to hear a pin drop. Jenny is the first to recover and offer congratulations, with Eric following uncertainly. But Dan meets Serena's eyes across the table and finds a mirror of himself there. Another brother or sister, one they both have shares in. Their brother or sister, shared, joint.
We're fucked, Dan thinks, and then mouths it at Serena. She blinks and then laughs, a helpless low sound that makes Dan start laughing too – both of them totally fucked, sitting there in the midst of familial cheer.
Later they go up to the roof. Dan looks out at the city spread before them, distant and vague, and lights a joint. A moment later there is the weight of Serena's chin on his shoulder, the smell of her shampoo, her hair brushing his cheek. She plucks it from his lips and takes a drag.