the best you ever had
dan/carter. dan/carter/ofc. background dan/others.
Dan had anticipated Carter showing up in the vicinity of two a.m. again, so he's surprised when the buzzer goes while he's in the middle of making dinner. He leaves the door unlocked before returning to his food. It's not long before there are footsteps in the hallway, and then a gentle knock.
"Why, honey, you shouldn't have." Carter lets the door shut before leaning back against it, eyes travelling first over the pan on the stove, then slowly over the rest of the apartment, expression neutral. Dan's apartment is a one-bedroom with a joke of a kitchen tucked into a corner of the living room. It's not the greatest, especially compared to where Dan grew up, but it had been nice, once, when he lived here with someone else. It had been homier then.
It's also got some pretty boss exposed brick.
Dan smiles, looking over at him. "As far as you're concerned, I didn't."
"Cute," Carter says as he drifts over. "Real cute." He nods his head towards the food. "So what's going on here?"
"This?" Dan says, "This here is what we call an omelette, the meal of choice for single people with no cooking skills."
Carter whistles low, hand coming up to rest companionably between Dan's shoulder blades. "Fancy. Never knew you were such a chef, Humphrey."
"To be fair, you know next to nothing about me as a person."
"Know some things," he says cheekily, and takes that as an opportunity to give Dan a good grope.
"Wow," Dan says with a sideways glance, "That was stunningly cheesy. That was bad. I was made to understand you had some kind of reputation for seducing people."
"I seduced you alright the first time," Carter says in that low, idle tone he has that really does it for Dan, reluctant as he is to admit it. "Gave it up in under fifteen minutes. I should be able to coast on that for a while, no?"
His hand has begun to move up and down the length of Dan's back in an absentminded way that is probably anything but.
"I don't know," Dan says slowly. "It's not like you exactly lived up to your promises that first time."
He gives Dan's hair a sharp chiding tug before his hand resumes its path. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Dan doesn't look up. "I've had better."
Carter is silent for a moment, absorbing this, and then he says, "Sounds like a challenge to me."
"Good," Dan says, turning, "Because it was."
Against the counter Dan goes, using what will hopefully be the last shred of his rational mind to turn the stove off first. The drawer pull digs sharply into Dan's lower back. He truly could not care less.
Carter's pressed up against him, hands under Dan's shirt skimming over his skin before the shirt is tugged off, tossed away. They're both pretty impatient every time they end up doing this, and it's all yanking at zippers, kicking away clothes. Last time Dan had finally gotten Carter completely out of his, though admittedly it'd been too dark to really enjoy the view.
The view is not something he would have anticipated wanting to enjoy a few months ago, but times have clearly changed. Case in point: Dan pushing Carter the few feet back onto the couch and getting on the floor between his legs. He uses the position to get a little perspective.
Carter naked is pretty great, biceps and abs and all that stuff. Dan likes Carter's body, the width of his shoulders, his muscular arms, his cock – it's not one to write home about, perfectly average, but Dan's finding it hard to express his increasingly positive feelings about it without resorting to bad puns and –
"What the fuck," he says, trying very hard to keep the burgeoning laughter from his voice, "is that."
There is a tattoo on Carter's hip. It is all in black, a tiger or panther or something with a slightly smushed face and a too-long tail whipping around Carter's side to his back. Dan does not understand how he has not noticed it before this moment.
Carter looks down, rolling his eyes. "Cautionary tale," he says dryly. "Decision of a high nineteen year old."
"Do you identify with panthers?" Dan asks and, no longer able to stifle the laughter, turns his face into Carter's knee to hide it. "Do you feel they represent you personally?"
Offended, Carter says, "It's clearly a mountain lion."
And Dan loses it all over again.
It appears Carter likes Dan's body too, though Dan is not going to question the whys of it. He looks fine, he knows that; he knows who and what he is, knows the skinny hipster thing works for some people. Carter apparently does not discriminate. But whenever Dan's fucking someone new he thinks of that one time when he actually thought he looked good, his freshman year when he went to the gym and everything. He always thinks you should know one time I looked better than this. But that's insecurity talking, and these days Dan tries not to give much weight to it. It can just be difficult in moments like this, kneeling in front of some dude preparing to give the first blowjob of his young life.
"Here's a tip," Carter says, thumb pressing gently into the hinge of Dan's jaw. "Contrary to the name, you suck, don't blow."
"Where'd you find that joke, 1995?"
Blowjobs are weird. Not weird weird, just – Dan likes them, obviously, in terms of getting them or looking at them in porn, but putting a dick in his own mouth is definitely weird. He has a split second of confusion when he does it, like, why did he make this choice? Why did he want to do this again? This thing he has no experience doing, that's awkward and unwieldy and –
"Teeth," Carter hisses.
Dan always liked going down on girls. He liked the way they felt and how they tasted, liked having that slick flesh under his tongue. He liked figuring out what each girl wanted and how they were different. But more than that it was just simple physical sensation: making women wet, teasing out their shivers, making them come.
Even thinking about it makes him a little more enthusiastic about sucking Carter's dick.
But after a while it's just, well, repetitive. There isn't exactly much to do except play chicken with his gag reflex and hope he doesn't look like a total idiot. He's certainly got nothing on Carter in this department.
He finally pulls off, looking up at Carter with an unimpressed expression. "This is fucking exhausting."
It's then that he notices Carter has a patchy flush crawling up his tan chest, which is rising and falling rapidly with his breathing. Interesting.
"You need practice," Carter says. "I volunteer to help with that."
"I'll bet."
Carter gives him a lazy grin, gaze flicking over Dan's face and down his body, lingering at his mouth and lower. "You wanna get fucked, you better go get ready."
"Sort of did already," Dan says, though he still starts to stand, because lube and condoms and all that jazz. Carter's got that interested look on his face, like Dan is a pet picking up new tricks all on its own. "You gonna call me easy again?"
"I like easy." Carter shifts forward, hands sliding over Dan's hips, thumbs rubbing over his hipbones. "Never was the kind of guy who got off on a challenge." His fingers roam over Dan's ass. He kisses Dan's stomach. "What do you like?"
Fidgeting just slightly under the attention, Dan says, "I'd like you to hold on five seconds," before he goes to get everything they'll need. He returns to find Carter rather impassively stroking his dick, looking contemplative.
"Come here," he says.
"Kind of the plan," Dan answers, but Carter doesn't just mean here as in closer, he means here as in sit in my lap. Which Dan does, knees tucked on either side of Carter's hips, dick coming suddenly very much to attention despite the somewhat awkward position.
"What is it?"
Dan sets his hands lightly on Carter's shoulders, feeling an answering touch at the base of his spine. "I don't know," he says. "I don't think I've ever sat in someone's lap before."
Carter sits up a little since Dan is leaning away, his lips finding freckles on Dan's chest. "Do you not like it?"
Every little movement brings Carter torturously into contact, never enough to be satisfying but just enough to tease. "I don't hate it."
In response Carter hums a little with his mouth on Dan's skin. Then he says, "It doesn't make you submissive or anything," with one of those annoying little bits of insight he has, "But it's fine if you are, too."
Dryly, Dan says, "Thank you for this after school special moment of learning to accept sexual peculiarities."
"Never saw that one," Carter remarks.
"I don't think that. About myself."
"If you did, then." Having found the bottle of lubricant, Carter is now rubbing slick fingers gently against Dan. "You didn't answer my question, you know."
"Which was?"
"What you like. What you want."
"Uh." Dan feels kind of sheepish answering questions like this, especially with someone's fingers practically in him; that aside, clear statements of desire have a way of making one feel self-conscious. "You could be…meaner."
Carter shifts a little and then his hand tangles in Dan's hair, yanks back hard. His mouth leaves a wet trail over Dan's bared throat. "I sort of figured," he says. "Your boner for Blair Waldorf could be seen from space."
"We're just friends," Dan protests, something he finds himself protesting often, but also it's hard to focus as he rocks back against Carter's hand. He's still not sure he likes himself like this.
Then Carter gives his hair another sharp, nasty pull that Dan hadn't been expecting, and he bears down keenly on the fingers pressing inside him.
"Oh, honey," Carter says, lips curling into a smile against Dan's chest. "You got a real thing, huh?"
"Shut up," Dan mutters. Carter bites his collarbone pointedly.
Carter gives him a break from questions as he works his fingers into Dan until they reach the joint decision that it's enough. It was enough five minutes ago, Dan wants to say but doesn't, still unable to articulate anything that might correlate to ¬– If he said that he wouldn't mind it a little rougher, what would that make him?
Carter telegraphs all his intentions very clearly, giving Dan little wordless touches and signals to get him to move whichever way so Carter can slide into him finally, a slow drag of heated skin that they both relish. But once inside Dan, Carter stills, removes his hands, and focuses on Dan very, very intently. Firmly, Carter says, "Here's what you're gonna do: whatever you want."
He's slouched down further on the couch now, hands resting casually on the cushions and watching Dan with those hazy eyes.
On the tip of Dan's tongue is I want you to get on with it already but that isn't what Carter means. This has to do with that accept-your-sex-weirdness stuff from before; it has to do with Dan not being able to ask for what he wants. There's definitely an added helping of Carter generally being an asshole, trying to rouse reactions from Dan for some unforeseeable end.
But maybe it's something else too, if the patient expression on Carter's face is anything to go by. Maybe he's trying to give Dan a little bit of navigation in this messy thing they've started. Maybe he's trying to help Dan steer.
Dan takes a deep breath. Do whatever you want to do.
What he does first is put his hands flat on Carter's chest, all that waiting muscle under his palms, and readjust the position of his knees. He can feel Carter so much more like this. He can feel Carter so deeply.
"It's all you, babe," Carter says, voice low. What an asshole.
At first Dan feels kind of, well…slutty, grinding down, guiding himself on Carter. He's not sure when exactly it changes from ridiculous to too-hot-to-give-a-fuck, he only knows his head drops back, his breathing shifts, and he stops caring. He stops caring what Carter thinks of him and how Carter's seeing him and what he probably looks like; he knows what he feels like, split and full and feverish.
Like he can't help himself, Carter starts to rub his hands over Dan's skin: up and down his thighs, over his waist and his chest. "I remember what an uptight little thing you used to be," he breathes. "In your little vests. So uncomfortable. So angry. God, if I'd only thought of it, I'd have fucked you then."
Dan snorts. There's a burn in his thighs as he drives onto Carter. "My head would have exploded at the thought."
"That's what makes it so good." His arms go around Dan, giving up his feigned indifference. "You surprising yourself. Wanting it anyway."
"Thought you didn't like a challenge?" Dan takes Carter by the wrist to redirect his attention to his dick. Then he pushes Carter away, back against the couch. "The Dan of ten years ago would have never done this."
"Then I guess I'm awfully lucky right now." His hand moves over Dan's cock quick and skillful, but he otherwise heeds Dan's implied order not to move. Even his hips don't shift up against Dan. "Definitely should've tried to get Serena to have a threeway, though."
Despite himself, Dan laughs. "Yeah, that would've gone over real well."
Carter grins at him. "You never know. Can you picture it?" His hands coast over Dan's arms, which are still keeping him pinned back. He moves Dan's hands a little closer to his throat, soft and relaxed under the press of Dan's thumbs.
"Had one once." Dan's eyes close, not because the memory of it is so great but because it's becoming more difficult to talk and do this at the same time. Carter's thrusting now, but lazily, and his hold on Dan's hips is loose. It's enough. It's all just enough, that sweet impatient feeling seeming endless. Dan feels Carter's throat work under his hands. "Aftermath wasn't so great."
"That's why I like to leave the country after."
"Yeah, I noticed."
Carter laughs. His hand wraps around Dan's cock again, like a reward for being amusing. "Came back, though, didn't I, honey?"
Dan considers just covering Carter's mouth to put an end to the commentary. He wonders if that's how people usually feel with him in bed. Huh. "I realize the irony, but –" He shifts restlessly in Carter's lap and flexes the fingers on Carter's neck. "Stop talking, maybe?"
Carter leans into Dan's touch slightly too hard, speeds up his strokes as he tilts to kiss the underside of Dan's jaw. He murmurs, "You know what I think, Dan? I think what you really want is someone to play tender, not rough."
Dan's grip on his throat is steady. "Oh?"
"Mm." Carter's teeth are at the space below Dan's ear. "I could play good for you. Haven't I been good? I could be so goddamn sweet it'd shatter you. You'd be a mess. No idea what to do with yourself."
Dan wants him to stop but also, obviously, does not. They're moving together harder now, more forcefully, seeking an end; it's close, Dan can practically taste how close it is. "You seem to like telling me what I want."
"Got a bad habit for pushing buttons," he says.
"Pretend I made a sex pun."
Carter smirks even as his thumb swipes insistently over the head of Dan's dick until a sharp sound reverberates somewhere in Dan's throat. The blue of his eyes seems cooler, gray-toned almost, in the light of Dan's apartment and he's waiting, body tensed beneath Dan. Dan can't seem to pull his gaze from Carter, riding his dick in time with Carter jerking him off, and then Carter wets his lips and Dan comes like skipping a step, missing a beat of his pulse. One minute he isn't anywhere near close enough and the next he's a goner, come streaking white over Carter's stomach.
He releases Carter's throat, finally, as that post-orgasm prickly haze descends. Then Carter runs a finger through the mess on his skin and brings it to his mouth to taste; Dan's entire exhausted body tries so hard to react to that, but all he manages to do is bear down on Carter with whatever remaining energy he's got, setting off that orgasm like a flame to kindling.
Dan slumps over to the side, breathing hard, face mashed into Carter's shoulder. "You are too good at that."
"I know," Carter says in a voice both unbothered and self-satisfied. He tilts to meet Dan's half-closed eyes. "I did porn one time."
Dan snorts. "Color me unsurprised."
"Are you trying to imply something about me, Humphrey?" Carter's voice is even nicer to listen to in the aftermath; that way he has of slurring his syllables just slightly is immensely soothing to Dan's muddled brain. "If you were trying to imply I'm a promiscuous fuck-up with issues, well. You'd be pretty much on point."
Dan kisses Carter's shoulder. "I really was not. And that is actually kind of very sad." Serena had a way of doing that too: tossing off very sad things very casually, as though they were nothing at all.
"I know," Carter says, still looking at him. "Beneath this charming, sexy exterior I have a secret wealth of pain."
Dan's lips twist into a little bit of a smile and he brings a hand up to touch Carter's mouth, the smooth bow shape naturally downturned at the corners. Then he kisses Carter, tired and unthinking.
But almost immediately he pulls back. "That was… Have we not done that before? Have we not kissed before just now?"
Carter takes a long moment to think about it, brow furrowed. "Might not've."
Kissing is generally a big deal for Dan. Girlfriends have poked well-meaning fun at him about it, but he can't help it, he just really likes to kiss. So even though Carter is Carter, it is distinctly unlike Dan to have had a whole lot of sex with someone without kissing them once.
So Dan leans in to kiss him again, to make up for lost time.
Carter kisses like he does everything else in bed: forceful but just the right side of pushy, directing but not demanding. And filthy, too – Carter doesn't bother teasing, just gives it all he's got, open-mouthed, messy, filthy kissing.
He's just slipping Dan some tongue when a sharp pain in Dan's leg makes him jump, and he looks down to see the cat innocently flexing her claws on him. She meows and then kneads his skin again, needle-sharp.
"Someone wants attention," Carter says.
The cat is named Sylvia. She's all white with blue eyes, a small pink nose, and the weighty judgmental stare of all cats. She had been a gift for Blair originally, until Blair decided litter boxes were simply too repulsive and gave her back. She's still technically Blair's cat, really, only she lives here. Dan explains all this to Carter, who has reached over to scratch behind Sylvia's ears, receiving an amused and knowing look in response.
"What?"
"'Just friends,' was it?" Carter replies. He scoops Sylvia up one-handed, but Dan intervenes and sets her back on the floor. Carter raises an eyebrow.
"You're naked, it's weird," Dan says with a fidgety shrug. They're both a bit of a mess, drying sweat and sex hair and…other things. Dan averts his gaze from Carter's stomach and stands. "I need to shower. You are, uh, of course welcome to also."
The amusement in Carter's expression only grows as he watches Dan from his comfortable sprawl. "Thanks, handsome."
Dan's own stomach gives a pitiful rumble as he moves towards the bathroom, reminding him that he never had dinner, and he gives his ruined omelette a pathetic, longing look. He'll have to figure something out once Carter leaves, which Dan assumes will be before his shower is over.
So he's a little surprised when Carter pulls back the shower curtain and hops in with him. "Won't be but a minute," he says with a quick grin, and it's the best kind of lie; Carter uses every excuse to get his hands on Dan, then makes out with him until the hot water is used up, then exits – leaving Dan to a cold shower he doesn't even have it in him to complain about.
Dan expects Carter to be gone by the time he's dressed but he's sitting on the couch in his jeans, on his phone, hair wet. Sylvia, traitor that she is, is a faintly purring fluffy white loaf on Carter's chest. Harper is playing on the television.
Dan is not quite sure what's going on here, but it sounds like Carter is ordering Indian food and Dan really does love Indian food. Once Carter hangs up, Dan asks doubtfully, "You watch movies?"
"Mm," Carter answers. "I also eat, breathe, walk, and talk. Just like a real boy."
Dan snorts as he drops onto the couch. "You're not as bad as I thought," he says. "You're actually sort of alright."
"High praise indeed." Companionably, Carter toys with the curls at the nape of Dan's neck. "Low expectations are easy to exceed. If you really cared about me, I'd be pretty disappointing, I promise."
"Oh, Bruce," Dan says, "It must be so hard being Batman."
Carter thwacks him upside the head.
And then this happens:
Blair throws brunches semi-regularly, as though they don't all see enough of each other as it is, and they put up with it because whatever her other faults might be, she can really throw together a menu. And when squinting through a hangover on Sundays, as most of them usually are, good food is a definite necessity.
Carter arrives arm-in-arm with Serena, and it strikes Dan (not for the first time) that they are at-ease with each other in a way neither of them are with anyone else, a kind of camaraderie over a decade in the making. Today, for whatever reason, Dan is faintly, irrationally annoyed by it – until Carter takes the seat next to him at the table and proves himself more interested in tracing Dan's inseam than following the conversation.
Carter cleans up real nice when he wants to; today is no exception. That's probably one of the few reasons Blair is only slightly huffy about his attendance: he's showed up looking every inch the good son of a prominent family, no hint of the trustafarian in sight. He shaved, put product in his hair, dressed in a pale gray button down and slacks – a change from his usual scruff and thrift-store pullovers. He looks good either way, but today there is a clean handsomeness to him that puts Dan's teeth on edge.
"– which is why Dorota isn't here, which is so unfair of her, really –"
"Yeah, B, how dare she want to spend time with her family," Serena teases.
Blair rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "Well, if the service is awful today, that's why."
"You know normal twenty-somethings don't have maid service at their brunches," Dan points out. "And the distance from here to your kitchen is like. Five feet."
"Life lessons from boy who grew up in a million-dollar loft."
"Without maid service," Nate chimes in helpfully.
"Since you're such a normal twenty-something, Humphrey –" Blair starts, and he doesn't even need her to finish that sentence.
"I feel like I need to remind everyone that I was a cater-waiter for like two weeks," Dan says. "I don't understand why I can't shake this."
"You're just awfully good at carrying plates," Blair says, giving him a mocking and overly sweet flutter of the lashes that does sort of work on him.
"And you make the best coffee!" Serena adds brightly.
So he goes into the kitchen to make the coffee and get the next round of goodies. He doesn't mind it, honestly; for all that the girls tease him, especially Blair, they're pretty good at taking their turns on the chore wheel. Well, Serena is. Blair's getting better.
After a few minutes the door to the kitchen pushes in, though Dan doesn't turn to see who it is, busy transferring tiny desserts to a tray. As soon as hands settle on his hips, he knows.
"No," Dan says. "Not at Blair's."
"You don't even know what I was gonna say," Carter protests. He pauses. "What about in the bathroom? Bathrooms are neutral territory."
"Nope, not fucking you in Blair Waldorf's bathroom."
"Just a handie?"
"You are the worst."
He bites the back of Dan's neck lightly and growls a little. "Come on… I need something more exciting than a mimosa to get me through anecdotes of Sean saving starving Dickensian orphans or whatever he does."
Dan continues to plate the pastries. "I see what you're doing there, but no: you will not be able to manipulate my hatred of Sean into sex for you."
Carter harrumphs a little before slipping directly into the space between Dan and the counter, carelessly interrupting Dan, who still has a tiny tartlet waiting in his hand. Carter leans forward to take a bite of it, leaving a little smudge of whipped cream on his top lip.
"You can give up the act," Carter says. "I can tell you're totally charmed."
"You are mind-bogglingly arrogant," Dan tells him. But he kisses Carter anyway.
There's the quickness of Carter's grin against his mouth before the kiss deepens, Dan dropping the tart so he can curl his fingers in Carter's oh-so-neat hair. Carter's hands slide up over his sides and down into the back pockets of his jeans. Dan is internally debating the neutrality of bathrooms – the desire to mess up Carter's good boy act is strong ¬– when he hears a soft, muffled sound behind them.
A soft, muffled, amused sound.
Dan thinks it'll be one of them, come to help – Serena maybe, or Sean, glad to see Dan probably won't steal his girlfriend after all. But it isn't one of them. It's all of them.
Both Serena and Nate are stifling laughter; Autumn is just a pair of eyes peeking over Nate's shoulder like she doesn't know what she's supposed to do; Sean looks, if anything, relieved; and Blair has the scrunched up expression of a person who just stepped in dog poo.
"In my kitchen?" Blair says.
"It's not like you use it for anything," Dan retorts automatically, which is probably not what one should say upon being caught fooling around in a friend's home. "Also, sorry."
Carter's hands are still on his ass, apparently without any intention at all of moving. Wait, Dan was wrong – one hand slides up the back of his t-shirt.
"Has this been going on long?" Blair demands.
"Hon," Sean says, touching her waist lightly. "Maybe you should let Dan tell you in his own time, when he's comfortable."
Dan rolls his eyes so hard he thinks he might've strained something. Carter pinches him.
"Ooh," Serena realizes, "Did this happen that time you were at my place, because I thought it was really weird that Carter did laundry –"
"Oh my god, ew." Blair looks like she just sucked on a lemon. "You people are hedonists."
Dan stares at her. "Who calls someone a hedonist in 2015?"
"If the shoe fits," Carter says. "I have basically fucked everyone in this room." He gives Autumn a wink. "'Cept you, sweetheart."
"Hey, hey, hey." Nate frowns. "Stop that. And we didn't have sex, exactly."
"Neither did we," Sean says. "Just pointing that out for the sake of accuracy."
"Oh my god, Sean, no one cares," Dan snaps.
And that's how everyone finds out.
Dan has to have a lot of conversations after that.
"It's casual," he explains to Blair – or tries to.
"The last time you were 'casual' with someone, you almost ended up engaged to Nelly Yuki, most desperate woman in all Manhattan," Blair says. Before he can respond, she holds up a hand. "And I swear to God if you try to deny it, I will be scratching the drapes."
Grinning, Dan says, "Aw, now don't be mean about Nelly. She's a good girl. You know, she gave shockingly good –"
"No," Blair practically hisses. "Please do not regale me with stories of the sexual prowess of my nemesis, Humphrey."
Serena is thankfully less interested in scolding him over the whole thing, possibly because she finds it so hilarious. "I just don't get how this happened. I mean, you and Carter. You are not a person who experiments. You're like one of those breeds of penguins who mate for life."
"To be fair," Dan says, "I made the decision very early in the morning."
Nate only wants to clarify that he did not, in fact, have sex with Carter. "It was like one blowjob," he says. "Totally doesn't count."
Dan fact-checks that with Carter, whose first response is a shrug as he flicks his cigarette towards the ashtray balanced on Dan's mattress; he has already gotten several burns in Dan's sheets. "Yeah. Sucked his dick once when we were teenagers." He pauses. "Well, he was a teenager, at any rate."
Dan snorts, shaking his head. "You are one shady motherfucker."
Carter gives him a shit-eating grin. "You like it."
Worst part is, Dan does.
Carter shifts on the bed, slithering up next to Dan, who up until now has been lying on his stomach and attempting to get some writing done. "You know," Carter murmurs, low in Dan's ear, "I fucked Blair Waldorf too."
Dan's fingers stutter on the laptop keys, ending the sentence he'd been writing with a jumble of nonsense letters. "You did not," he says, even as he thinks back to the kitchen. Blair hadn't denied being among Carter's everyone. "When?"
"Oh, she had a bad girl phase for about two minutes… Being a bad man, I took advantage."
Dan's heart is suddenly thumping hard against his ribcage, something akin to betrayal swirling through him. But that's ridiculous. He has no reason to feel anything like that. Carter leans in to kiss Dan's neck below his ear, lips soft and hot.
"Want a play-by-play?"
"No," Dan huffs. "It's none of my business."
"But you're curious."
He can feel Carter watching him, so he makes a point of resuming his typing, even if his brain is now essentially blank. "That doesn't make it my business."
Fluid as anything, Carter pushes up and levers himself over Dan, settling on top of him. His mouth presses to the back of Dan's neck briefly. "Quick question: do you miss fucking girls?"
Dan shuts his laptop.
He doesn't even know how one goes about picking up a girl to have sex with oneself and one's shady hook-up, and he rejects asking Serena on grounds of feeling weird about it ("But she's great at threesomes," Carter tries.). Luckily for him his shady hook-up is Carter, and Carter knows all about finding random girls to have sex with.
They go out for drinks, Dan a little anxious but trying to hide it. He excuses himself to the bathroom for a mere five minutes and by the time he returns, there is already a girl sitting at the table next to Carter and laughing at his jokes. It's that fast, blink and you'll miss it, and Dan would be suspicious of Carter's sweet-talking skills if he hadn't experienced them firsthand.
Carter grins wide when he spots Dan. "Danny," he says, knowing Dan hates that, "Meet our new friend Marisol."
"Dan," Dan corrects, finding a smile as he reaches for her hand. "He knows I hate that."
Marisol is petite and strikingly pretty with dark hair swept back off her shoulders. She has a square-shaped face, strong jaw balancing out startlingly symmetrical features. When she smiles, shallow dimples crease her cheeks.
"How long have you two been together?" she asks.
Dan opens his mouth to say something snide but Carter gets there first. "Officially? Two months," he says, sliding an arm around Dan's shoulders.
"Unofficially –" Dan starts.
"Matter of perspective," Carter says with a wink.
"You have absolutely got to cut it out with that winking shit," Dan says, and Marisol laughs.
She must be into the whole boyfriends thing, because Carter plays it up through a few more rounds of drinks. He's always been a man free with endearments but he levels up in front of Marisol – it's all honey this and baby that, and even one or two skin-tingling sweethearts. It's not just that, either; the way he touches Dan becomes stupidly gentle, and Dan finds himself embarrassingly into it too. It's a warm hand curled around the back of his neck, a laughing kiss pressed to his cheek. He thinks of the time Carter promised he could be so tender it'd be shattering.
Eventually the evening winds down and Carter leans across the table, all low-voiced persuasion. "So what do you say, beautiful? Interested or not?"
Marisol's lips purse thoughtfully, gaze shifting between them, and then she shrugs, posture relaxing in the span of a breath. Her eyes almost seem to glitter. "Oh, what the hell. Might as well cross it off my bucket list."
Carter laughs. "Attagirl."
In the cab, Carter kisses her, his fingertips on the strong line of her jaw. He looks at Dan over the curve of her cheek, just blue eyes and a wry grin that softens against Marisol's mouth. Carter's hand pauses on her thigh, stroking back and forth, until she glances quickly at the back of the driver's head and bites her lip, gives Carter a murmured, "Go ahead."
So his hand skims higher, disappearing under the scalloped edge of her black skirt. She sucks in a very, very soft breath, shifting in her seat as Carter slowly drags her panties down until they tangle at her ankles and she kicks them away. Someone should probably retrieve them from the cab floor but Dan imagines they're all just too distracted.
"Give her a kiss, sweetheart," Carter says.
"You're so bossy," Dan tells him, but he's already leaning in to do it. This is Dan's worst behavior in the back of a cab yet, but she tastes so sweet, like cherries and amaretto, that a little bad behavior feels almost warranted. Carter's fingers twist with his, tugging him away from Marisol to steal a kiss of his own; playing the possessive boyfriend, maybe. The cabdriver sighs, an exhausted huff.
The car pulls over a few moments later, Carter and Marisol piling out first and leaving Dan to awkwardly pay the fare with a cringing "sorry?" They hightail it up all five flights, arriving breathless on the landing, Marisol resting against the wall with exaggerated exhaustion.
"You guys need to invest in a building with an elevator," she says. She reaches out to grab a handful of Dan's shirt and haul him over, tilting her face up to kiss him.
"That's what I'm always telling him," Carter says airily as he fishes Dan's keys out of his pocket, because Carter is always losing his own.
Dan fixes his mouth on Marisol's throat, teeth gentle. "He's full of shit, you know."
She seems amused by that. "Who isn't?"
With a click and a sweep, the door opens, Carter reaching over to pull Marisol away from Dan and into the apartment. "You wanna know the truth? Dan and I actually share an ex-girlfriend. It's how we met."
Dan follows them in, watching as Carter peels the jacket from her shoulders and opens the buttons of her blouse one by one. "That's interesting," Marisol says, but she sounds both disinterested and doubtful. She plucks Carter's belt open, slides his zipper down, and slips her hand in.
Carter releases a soft, bitten-off moan. "God's honest. And you know what she told me?" He turns Marisol around and pulls her against his chest so they're both looking over in Dan's direction. "She told me Dan gave the best head she ever had in her life. How about that?"
Now Marisol seems a good deal more interested.
"'Course he's fucking terrible at it with guys," Carter continues. "Can't suck a dick worth a damn."
"I don't put in that much effort with you," Dan says.
Carter smiles but hides it against Marisol's shoulder. "So, sweetheart," he says to her, and the back of Dan's neck prickles. "How do you want it?"
"I'll give him a shot." She tries to sound cavalier but it just comes off breathless, and her gaze keeps pulling to Dan's mouth. He gives her half a smile, drifting closer until he can get on his knees in front of her.
"I'll do my best," he says.
Carter tugs her skirt up obligingly. Her panties are still forgotten somewhere in a New York City taxi, and Dan leans forward to part her with his tongue, deliberate and careful. He looks up and almost laughs to see both of them so intensely watching him, mirrored expressions of lip-biting anticipation. Carter has a hand tucked into the cup of her bra.
The pressure is on for Dan, what with Carter talking him up to the point of ridiculousness, but for once he doesn't feel out of his element. He may not be the best ever in this particular woman's life but this is something he can do, and has done, well. He gives himself up to it, first just mapping her sensitive skin, a little cool from exposure but getting hotter. His lips move over her with purposeful softness, dropping kisses along her cunt like he would anywhere else, like he would kiss her mouth.
He chances a look up again and sees Marisol's eyes tightly closed, her head tipped back, Carter whispering in her ear. Whatever he's saying is probably doing half as much work as Dan is, but Dan isn't really interested in sharing the workload. He nips her thigh sharply to get her attention and then redoubles his efforts.
He focuses everything he's got on her previously ignored clit, sucking and licking and nibbling until he can feel her legs tense and tremble on either side of him. A hand is tight in his hair but it feels like Carter's hand, feels recognizable, and Dan is emboldened, strangely, by that. The angle's iffy but he sinks his tongue inside her as much as he reasonably can then sucks a messy kiss on the surrounding skin, slick and sharp – the taste of her is specifically hers but holds something in common with other women, makes Dan realize just how much he likes this, missed this, wanted this. He's hard but it's a distant feeling, just the ticking of his heartbeat in his body and the pulse of hers against his tongue.
"I'm gonna –" Marisol gasps, but she's wriggling away instead of closer. "Not yet, not yet, I wanna save it."
"I think you're allowed more than one," Dan jokes, but dutifully sits back, raising a hand to wipe his mouth. Then he notices the way Carter's watching him and puts his hand back down.
Carter gives Marisol a nudge but he's still looking at Dan when he tells her, "Bedroom's through there, honey."
Dan rises as Carter reaches for him. "You'll just call anyone that, won't you."
"You want me to save it just for you?" Carter holds Dan's face between his hands, sucks lightly on Dan's bottom lip, tastes Marisol on him. "Want to be the only one called sweet things?"
Dan doesn't know if they're still putting on the show for company, because Marisol is in the other room and, anyway, it doesn't feel very much like playing. Dan makes a low, noncommittal sound before kissing Carter, being kissed.
"I can do that, sweetheart," Carter says, and Dan just wants him to shut up now, so the next kiss is harder, and so's the next after. They kiss until Carter bites Dan's mouth roughly, almost savagely, and it's that, or a combination of everything, that has Dan pressing so close they stumble as they stand there. It's single-minded and furious and Dan wants nothing more than to take Carter to bed, forgetting momentarily that there's another person waiting for them there.
Until she speaks. Marisol's voice floats in from the other room, doing her level best at beguiling: "Boys?"
They have a good time with Marisol, who proves to be uninhibited and good-natured, so exactly what they were looking for that Dan is half-ready to write the entire night off as a fever dream. She leaves sometime in the early hours while they're sleeping, her name and number printed in liquid liner on Carter's bicep.
"God, what a girl," Carter says, admiring it. "Look at that, no smudges."
But Dan is still thinking of the night before, and, well – he's been fucking Carter exclusively for two entire months (officially) and he doesn't know if Carter's been with other people but he can't imagine how Carter could find the time since they're always together. Carter's always looking for a place to crash so he ends up sleeping at Dan's a lot, ordering in and staking claim to the spare toothbrush. Sometimes they even go out for dinner. And, once, to a movie.
Horrified, Dan wonders aloud, "Am I your boyfriend?"
Carter looks up from the phone number on his arm, repulsed. "Dan, I'm comfortable, I don't wanna have to get up to puke."
Dan's tense shoulders relax fractionally. "But we are…friends, sort of?"
Carter considers this. "Sort of," he says finally. "Dick friends."
PART THREE
dan/carter. dan/carter/ofc. background dan/others.
Dan had anticipated Carter showing up in the vicinity of two a.m. again, so he's surprised when the buzzer goes while he's in the middle of making dinner. He leaves the door unlocked before returning to his food. It's not long before there are footsteps in the hallway, and then a gentle knock.
"Why, honey, you shouldn't have." Carter lets the door shut before leaning back against it, eyes travelling first over the pan on the stove, then slowly over the rest of the apartment, expression neutral. Dan's apartment is a one-bedroom with a joke of a kitchen tucked into a corner of the living room. It's not the greatest, especially compared to where Dan grew up, but it had been nice, once, when he lived here with someone else. It had been homier then.
It's also got some pretty boss exposed brick.
Dan smiles, looking over at him. "As far as you're concerned, I didn't."
"Cute," Carter says as he drifts over. "Real cute." He nods his head towards the food. "So what's going on here?"
"This?" Dan says, "This here is what we call an omelette, the meal of choice for single people with no cooking skills."
Carter whistles low, hand coming up to rest companionably between Dan's shoulder blades. "Fancy. Never knew you were such a chef, Humphrey."
"To be fair, you know next to nothing about me as a person."
"Know some things," he says cheekily, and takes that as an opportunity to give Dan a good grope.
"Wow," Dan says with a sideways glance, "That was stunningly cheesy. That was bad. I was made to understand you had some kind of reputation for seducing people."
"I seduced you alright the first time," Carter says in that low, idle tone he has that really does it for Dan, reluctant as he is to admit it. "Gave it up in under fifteen minutes. I should be able to coast on that for a while, no?"
His hand has begun to move up and down the length of Dan's back in an absentminded way that is probably anything but.
"I don't know," Dan says slowly. "It's not like you exactly lived up to your promises that first time."
He gives Dan's hair a sharp chiding tug before his hand resumes its path. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Dan doesn't look up. "I've had better."
Carter is silent for a moment, absorbing this, and then he says, "Sounds like a challenge to me."
"Good," Dan says, turning, "Because it was."
Against the counter Dan goes, using what will hopefully be the last shred of his rational mind to turn the stove off first. The drawer pull digs sharply into Dan's lower back. He truly could not care less.
Carter's pressed up against him, hands under Dan's shirt skimming over his skin before the shirt is tugged off, tossed away. They're both pretty impatient every time they end up doing this, and it's all yanking at zippers, kicking away clothes. Last time Dan had finally gotten Carter completely out of his, though admittedly it'd been too dark to really enjoy the view.
The view is not something he would have anticipated wanting to enjoy a few months ago, but times have clearly changed. Case in point: Dan pushing Carter the few feet back onto the couch and getting on the floor between his legs. He uses the position to get a little perspective.
Carter naked is pretty great, biceps and abs and all that stuff. Dan likes Carter's body, the width of his shoulders, his muscular arms, his cock – it's not one to write home about, perfectly average, but Dan's finding it hard to express his increasingly positive feelings about it without resorting to bad puns and –
"What the fuck," he says, trying very hard to keep the burgeoning laughter from his voice, "is that."
There is a tattoo on Carter's hip. It is all in black, a tiger or panther or something with a slightly smushed face and a too-long tail whipping around Carter's side to his back. Dan does not understand how he has not noticed it before this moment.
Carter looks down, rolling his eyes. "Cautionary tale," he says dryly. "Decision of a high nineteen year old."
"Do you identify with panthers?" Dan asks and, no longer able to stifle the laughter, turns his face into Carter's knee to hide it. "Do you feel they represent you personally?"
Offended, Carter says, "It's clearly a mountain lion."
And Dan loses it all over again.
It appears Carter likes Dan's body too, though Dan is not going to question the whys of it. He looks fine, he knows that; he knows who and what he is, knows the skinny hipster thing works for some people. Carter apparently does not discriminate. But whenever Dan's fucking someone new he thinks of that one time when he actually thought he looked good, his freshman year when he went to the gym and everything. He always thinks you should know one time I looked better than this. But that's insecurity talking, and these days Dan tries not to give much weight to it. It can just be difficult in moments like this, kneeling in front of some dude preparing to give the first blowjob of his young life.
"Here's a tip," Carter says, thumb pressing gently into the hinge of Dan's jaw. "Contrary to the name, you suck, don't blow."
"Where'd you find that joke, 1995?"
Blowjobs are weird. Not weird weird, just – Dan likes them, obviously, in terms of getting them or looking at them in porn, but putting a dick in his own mouth is definitely weird. He has a split second of confusion when he does it, like, why did he make this choice? Why did he want to do this again? This thing he has no experience doing, that's awkward and unwieldy and –
"Teeth," Carter hisses.
Dan always liked going down on girls. He liked the way they felt and how they tasted, liked having that slick flesh under his tongue. He liked figuring out what each girl wanted and how they were different. But more than that it was just simple physical sensation: making women wet, teasing out their shivers, making them come.
Even thinking about it makes him a little more enthusiastic about sucking Carter's dick.
But after a while it's just, well, repetitive. There isn't exactly much to do except play chicken with his gag reflex and hope he doesn't look like a total idiot. He's certainly got nothing on Carter in this department.
He finally pulls off, looking up at Carter with an unimpressed expression. "This is fucking exhausting."
It's then that he notices Carter has a patchy flush crawling up his tan chest, which is rising and falling rapidly with his breathing. Interesting.
"You need practice," Carter says. "I volunteer to help with that."
"I'll bet."
Carter gives him a lazy grin, gaze flicking over Dan's face and down his body, lingering at his mouth and lower. "You wanna get fucked, you better go get ready."
"Sort of did already," Dan says, though he still starts to stand, because lube and condoms and all that jazz. Carter's got that interested look on his face, like Dan is a pet picking up new tricks all on its own. "You gonna call me easy again?"
"I like easy." Carter shifts forward, hands sliding over Dan's hips, thumbs rubbing over his hipbones. "Never was the kind of guy who got off on a challenge." His fingers roam over Dan's ass. He kisses Dan's stomach. "What do you like?"
Fidgeting just slightly under the attention, Dan says, "I'd like you to hold on five seconds," before he goes to get everything they'll need. He returns to find Carter rather impassively stroking his dick, looking contemplative.
"Come here," he says.
"Kind of the plan," Dan answers, but Carter doesn't just mean here as in closer, he means here as in sit in my lap. Which Dan does, knees tucked on either side of Carter's hips, dick coming suddenly very much to attention despite the somewhat awkward position.
"What is it?"
Dan sets his hands lightly on Carter's shoulders, feeling an answering touch at the base of his spine. "I don't know," he says. "I don't think I've ever sat in someone's lap before."
Carter sits up a little since Dan is leaning away, his lips finding freckles on Dan's chest. "Do you not like it?"
Every little movement brings Carter torturously into contact, never enough to be satisfying but just enough to tease. "I don't hate it."
In response Carter hums a little with his mouth on Dan's skin. Then he says, "It doesn't make you submissive or anything," with one of those annoying little bits of insight he has, "But it's fine if you are, too."
Dryly, Dan says, "Thank you for this after school special moment of learning to accept sexual peculiarities."
"Never saw that one," Carter remarks.
"I don't think that. About myself."
"If you did, then." Having found the bottle of lubricant, Carter is now rubbing slick fingers gently against Dan. "You didn't answer my question, you know."
"Which was?"
"What you like. What you want."
"Uh." Dan feels kind of sheepish answering questions like this, especially with someone's fingers practically in him; that aside, clear statements of desire have a way of making one feel self-conscious. "You could be…meaner."
Carter shifts a little and then his hand tangles in Dan's hair, yanks back hard. His mouth leaves a wet trail over Dan's bared throat. "I sort of figured," he says. "Your boner for Blair Waldorf could be seen from space."
"We're just friends," Dan protests, something he finds himself protesting often, but also it's hard to focus as he rocks back against Carter's hand. He's still not sure he likes himself like this.
Then Carter gives his hair another sharp, nasty pull that Dan hadn't been expecting, and he bears down keenly on the fingers pressing inside him.
"Oh, honey," Carter says, lips curling into a smile against Dan's chest. "You got a real thing, huh?"
"Shut up," Dan mutters. Carter bites his collarbone pointedly.
Carter gives him a break from questions as he works his fingers into Dan until they reach the joint decision that it's enough. It was enough five minutes ago, Dan wants to say but doesn't, still unable to articulate anything that might correlate to ¬– If he said that he wouldn't mind it a little rougher, what would that make him?
Carter telegraphs all his intentions very clearly, giving Dan little wordless touches and signals to get him to move whichever way so Carter can slide into him finally, a slow drag of heated skin that they both relish. But once inside Dan, Carter stills, removes his hands, and focuses on Dan very, very intently. Firmly, Carter says, "Here's what you're gonna do: whatever you want."
He's slouched down further on the couch now, hands resting casually on the cushions and watching Dan with those hazy eyes.
On the tip of Dan's tongue is I want you to get on with it already but that isn't what Carter means. This has to do with that accept-your-sex-weirdness stuff from before; it has to do with Dan not being able to ask for what he wants. There's definitely an added helping of Carter generally being an asshole, trying to rouse reactions from Dan for some unforeseeable end.
But maybe it's something else too, if the patient expression on Carter's face is anything to go by. Maybe he's trying to give Dan a little bit of navigation in this messy thing they've started. Maybe he's trying to help Dan steer.
Dan takes a deep breath. Do whatever you want to do.
What he does first is put his hands flat on Carter's chest, all that waiting muscle under his palms, and readjust the position of his knees. He can feel Carter so much more like this. He can feel Carter so deeply.
"It's all you, babe," Carter says, voice low. What an asshole.
At first Dan feels kind of, well…slutty, grinding down, guiding himself on Carter. He's not sure when exactly it changes from ridiculous to too-hot-to-give-a-fuck, he only knows his head drops back, his breathing shifts, and he stops caring. He stops caring what Carter thinks of him and how Carter's seeing him and what he probably looks like; he knows what he feels like, split and full and feverish.
Like he can't help himself, Carter starts to rub his hands over Dan's skin: up and down his thighs, over his waist and his chest. "I remember what an uptight little thing you used to be," he breathes. "In your little vests. So uncomfortable. So angry. God, if I'd only thought of it, I'd have fucked you then."
Dan snorts. There's a burn in his thighs as he drives onto Carter. "My head would have exploded at the thought."
"That's what makes it so good." His arms go around Dan, giving up his feigned indifference. "You surprising yourself. Wanting it anyway."
"Thought you didn't like a challenge?" Dan takes Carter by the wrist to redirect his attention to his dick. Then he pushes Carter away, back against the couch. "The Dan of ten years ago would have never done this."
"Then I guess I'm awfully lucky right now." His hand moves over Dan's cock quick and skillful, but he otherwise heeds Dan's implied order not to move. Even his hips don't shift up against Dan. "Definitely should've tried to get Serena to have a threeway, though."
Despite himself, Dan laughs. "Yeah, that would've gone over real well."
Carter grins at him. "You never know. Can you picture it?" His hands coast over Dan's arms, which are still keeping him pinned back. He moves Dan's hands a little closer to his throat, soft and relaxed under the press of Dan's thumbs.
"Had one once." Dan's eyes close, not because the memory of it is so great but because it's becoming more difficult to talk and do this at the same time. Carter's thrusting now, but lazily, and his hold on Dan's hips is loose. It's enough. It's all just enough, that sweet impatient feeling seeming endless. Dan feels Carter's throat work under his hands. "Aftermath wasn't so great."
"That's why I like to leave the country after."
"Yeah, I noticed."
Carter laughs. His hand wraps around Dan's cock again, like a reward for being amusing. "Came back, though, didn't I, honey?"
Dan considers just covering Carter's mouth to put an end to the commentary. He wonders if that's how people usually feel with him in bed. Huh. "I realize the irony, but –" He shifts restlessly in Carter's lap and flexes the fingers on Carter's neck. "Stop talking, maybe?"
Carter leans into Dan's touch slightly too hard, speeds up his strokes as he tilts to kiss the underside of Dan's jaw. He murmurs, "You know what I think, Dan? I think what you really want is someone to play tender, not rough."
Dan's grip on his throat is steady. "Oh?"
"Mm." Carter's teeth are at the space below Dan's ear. "I could play good for you. Haven't I been good? I could be so goddamn sweet it'd shatter you. You'd be a mess. No idea what to do with yourself."
Dan wants him to stop but also, obviously, does not. They're moving together harder now, more forcefully, seeking an end; it's close, Dan can practically taste how close it is. "You seem to like telling me what I want."
"Got a bad habit for pushing buttons," he says.
"Pretend I made a sex pun."
Carter smirks even as his thumb swipes insistently over the head of Dan's dick until a sharp sound reverberates somewhere in Dan's throat. The blue of his eyes seems cooler, gray-toned almost, in the light of Dan's apartment and he's waiting, body tensed beneath Dan. Dan can't seem to pull his gaze from Carter, riding his dick in time with Carter jerking him off, and then Carter wets his lips and Dan comes like skipping a step, missing a beat of his pulse. One minute he isn't anywhere near close enough and the next he's a goner, come streaking white over Carter's stomach.
He releases Carter's throat, finally, as that post-orgasm prickly haze descends. Then Carter runs a finger through the mess on his skin and brings it to his mouth to taste; Dan's entire exhausted body tries so hard to react to that, but all he manages to do is bear down on Carter with whatever remaining energy he's got, setting off that orgasm like a flame to kindling.
Dan slumps over to the side, breathing hard, face mashed into Carter's shoulder. "You are too good at that."
"I know," Carter says in a voice both unbothered and self-satisfied. He tilts to meet Dan's half-closed eyes. "I did porn one time."
Dan snorts. "Color me unsurprised."
"Are you trying to imply something about me, Humphrey?" Carter's voice is even nicer to listen to in the aftermath; that way he has of slurring his syllables just slightly is immensely soothing to Dan's muddled brain. "If you were trying to imply I'm a promiscuous fuck-up with issues, well. You'd be pretty much on point."
Dan kisses Carter's shoulder. "I really was not. And that is actually kind of very sad." Serena had a way of doing that too: tossing off very sad things very casually, as though they were nothing at all.
"I know," Carter says, still looking at him. "Beneath this charming, sexy exterior I have a secret wealth of pain."
Dan's lips twist into a little bit of a smile and he brings a hand up to touch Carter's mouth, the smooth bow shape naturally downturned at the corners. Then he kisses Carter, tired and unthinking.
But almost immediately he pulls back. "That was… Have we not done that before? Have we not kissed before just now?"
Carter takes a long moment to think about it, brow furrowed. "Might not've."
Kissing is generally a big deal for Dan. Girlfriends have poked well-meaning fun at him about it, but he can't help it, he just really likes to kiss. So even though Carter is Carter, it is distinctly unlike Dan to have had a whole lot of sex with someone without kissing them once.
So Dan leans in to kiss him again, to make up for lost time.
Carter kisses like he does everything else in bed: forceful but just the right side of pushy, directing but not demanding. And filthy, too – Carter doesn't bother teasing, just gives it all he's got, open-mouthed, messy, filthy kissing.
He's just slipping Dan some tongue when a sharp pain in Dan's leg makes him jump, and he looks down to see the cat innocently flexing her claws on him. She meows and then kneads his skin again, needle-sharp.
"Someone wants attention," Carter says.
The cat is named Sylvia. She's all white with blue eyes, a small pink nose, and the weighty judgmental stare of all cats. She had been a gift for Blair originally, until Blair decided litter boxes were simply too repulsive and gave her back. She's still technically Blair's cat, really, only she lives here. Dan explains all this to Carter, who has reached over to scratch behind Sylvia's ears, receiving an amused and knowing look in response.
"What?"
"'Just friends,' was it?" Carter replies. He scoops Sylvia up one-handed, but Dan intervenes and sets her back on the floor. Carter raises an eyebrow.
"You're naked, it's weird," Dan says with a fidgety shrug. They're both a bit of a mess, drying sweat and sex hair and…other things. Dan averts his gaze from Carter's stomach and stands. "I need to shower. You are, uh, of course welcome to also."
The amusement in Carter's expression only grows as he watches Dan from his comfortable sprawl. "Thanks, handsome."
Dan's own stomach gives a pitiful rumble as he moves towards the bathroom, reminding him that he never had dinner, and he gives his ruined omelette a pathetic, longing look. He'll have to figure something out once Carter leaves, which Dan assumes will be before his shower is over.
So he's a little surprised when Carter pulls back the shower curtain and hops in with him. "Won't be but a minute," he says with a quick grin, and it's the best kind of lie; Carter uses every excuse to get his hands on Dan, then makes out with him until the hot water is used up, then exits – leaving Dan to a cold shower he doesn't even have it in him to complain about.
Dan expects Carter to be gone by the time he's dressed but he's sitting on the couch in his jeans, on his phone, hair wet. Sylvia, traitor that she is, is a faintly purring fluffy white loaf on Carter's chest. Harper is playing on the television.
Dan is not quite sure what's going on here, but it sounds like Carter is ordering Indian food and Dan really does love Indian food. Once Carter hangs up, Dan asks doubtfully, "You watch movies?"
"Mm," Carter answers. "I also eat, breathe, walk, and talk. Just like a real boy."
Dan snorts as he drops onto the couch. "You're not as bad as I thought," he says. "You're actually sort of alright."
"High praise indeed." Companionably, Carter toys with the curls at the nape of Dan's neck. "Low expectations are easy to exceed. If you really cared about me, I'd be pretty disappointing, I promise."
"Oh, Bruce," Dan says, "It must be so hard being Batman."
Carter thwacks him upside the head.
And then this happens:
Blair throws brunches semi-regularly, as though they don't all see enough of each other as it is, and they put up with it because whatever her other faults might be, she can really throw together a menu. And when squinting through a hangover on Sundays, as most of them usually are, good food is a definite necessity.
Carter arrives arm-in-arm with Serena, and it strikes Dan (not for the first time) that they are at-ease with each other in a way neither of them are with anyone else, a kind of camaraderie over a decade in the making. Today, for whatever reason, Dan is faintly, irrationally annoyed by it – until Carter takes the seat next to him at the table and proves himself more interested in tracing Dan's inseam than following the conversation.
Carter cleans up real nice when he wants to; today is no exception. That's probably one of the few reasons Blair is only slightly huffy about his attendance: he's showed up looking every inch the good son of a prominent family, no hint of the trustafarian in sight. He shaved, put product in his hair, dressed in a pale gray button down and slacks – a change from his usual scruff and thrift-store pullovers. He looks good either way, but today there is a clean handsomeness to him that puts Dan's teeth on edge.
"– which is why Dorota isn't here, which is so unfair of her, really –"
"Yeah, B, how dare she want to spend time with her family," Serena teases.
Blair rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "Well, if the service is awful today, that's why."
"You know normal twenty-somethings don't have maid service at their brunches," Dan points out. "And the distance from here to your kitchen is like. Five feet."
"Life lessons from boy who grew up in a million-dollar loft."
"Without maid service," Nate chimes in helpfully.
"Since you're such a normal twenty-something, Humphrey –" Blair starts, and he doesn't even need her to finish that sentence.
"I feel like I need to remind everyone that I was a cater-waiter for like two weeks," Dan says. "I don't understand why I can't shake this."
"You're just awfully good at carrying plates," Blair says, giving him a mocking and overly sweet flutter of the lashes that does sort of work on him.
"And you make the best coffee!" Serena adds brightly.
So he goes into the kitchen to make the coffee and get the next round of goodies. He doesn't mind it, honestly; for all that the girls tease him, especially Blair, they're pretty good at taking their turns on the chore wheel. Well, Serena is. Blair's getting better.
After a few minutes the door to the kitchen pushes in, though Dan doesn't turn to see who it is, busy transferring tiny desserts to a tray. As soon as hands settle on his hips, he knows.
"No," Dan says. "Not at Blair's."
"You don't even know what I was gonna say," Carter protests. He pauses. "What about in the bathroom? Bathrooms are neutral territory."
"Nope, not fucking you in Blair Waldorf's bathroom."
"Just a handie?"
"You are the worst."
He bites the back of Dan's neck lightly and growls a little. "Come on… I need something more exciting than a mimosa to get me through anecdotes of Sean saving starving Dickensian orphans or whatever he does."
Dan continues to plate the pastries. "I see what you're doing there, but no: you will not be able to manipulate my hatred of Sean into sex for you."
Carter harrumphs a little before slipping directly into the space between Dan and the counter, carelessly interrupting Dan, who still has a tiny tartlet waiting in his hand. Carter leans forward to take a bite of it, leaving a little smudge of whipped cream on his top lip.
"You can give up the act," Carter says. "I can tell you're totally charmed."
"You are mind-bogglingly arrogant," Dan tells him. But he kisses Carter anyway.
There's the quickness of Carter's grin against his mouth before the kiss deepens, Dan dropping the tart so he can curl his fingers in Carter's oh-so-neat hair. Carter's hands slide up over his sides and down into the back pockets of his jeans. Dan is internally debating the neutrality of bathrooms – the desire to mess up Carter's good boy act is strong ¬– when he hears a soft, muffled sound behind them.
A soft, muffled, amused sound.
Dan thinks it'll be one of them, come to help – Serena maybe, or Sean, glad to see Dan probably won't steal his girlfriend after all. But it isn't one of them. It's all of them.
Both Serena and Nate are stifling laughter; Autumn is just a pair of eyes peeking over Nate's shoulder like she doesn't know what she's supposed to do; Sean looks, if anything, relieved; and Blair has the scrunched up expression of a person who just stepped in dog poo.
"In my kitchen?" Blair says.
"It's not like you use it for anything," Dan retorts automatically, which is probably not what one should say upon being caught fooling around in a friend's home. "Also, sorry."
Carter's hands are still on his ass, apparently without any intention at all of moving. Wait, Dan was wrong – one hand slides up the back of his t-shirt.
"Has this been going on long?" Blair demands.
"Hon," Sean says, touching her waist lightly. "Maybe you should let Dan tell you in his own time, when he's comfortable."
Dan rolls his eyes so hard he thinks he might've strained something. Carter pinches him.
"Ooh," Serena realizes, "Did this happen that time you were at my place, because I thought it was really weird that Carter did laundry –"
"Oh my god, ew." Blair looks like she just sucked on a lemon. "You people are hedonists."
Dan stares at her. "Who calls someone a hedonist in 2015?"
"If the shoe fits," Carter says. "I have basically fucked everyone in this room." He gives Autumn a wink. "'Cept you, sweetheart."
"Hey, hey, hey." Nate frowns. "Stop that. And we didn't have sex, exactly."
"Neither did we," Sean says. "Just pointing that out for the sake of accuracy."
"Oh my god, Sean, no one cares," Dan snaps.
And that's how everyone finds out.
Dan has to have a lot of conversations after that.
"It's casual," he explains to Blair – or tries to.
"The last time you were 'casual' with someone, you almost ended up engaged to Nelly Yuki, most desperate woman in all Manhattan," Blair says. Before he can respond, she holds up a hand. "And I swear to God if you try to deny it, I will be scratching the drapes."
Grinning, Dan says, "Aw, now don't be mean about Nelly. She's a good girl. You know, she gave shockingly good –"
"No," Blair practically hisses. "Please do not regale me with stories of the sexual prowess of my nemesis, Humphrey."
Serena is thankfully less interested in scolding him over the whole thing, possibly because she finds it so hilarious. "I just don't get how this happened. I mean, you and Carter. You are not a person who experiments. You're like one of those breeds of penguins who mate for life."
"To be fair," Dan says, "I made the decision very early in the morning."
Nate only wants to clarify that he did not, in fact, have sex with Carter. "It was like one blowjob," he says. "Totally doesn't count."
Dan fact-checks that with Carter, whose first response is a shrug as he flicks his cigarette towards the ashtray balanced on Dan's mattress; he has already gotten several burns in Dan's sheets. "Yeah. Sucked his dick once when we were teenagers." He pauses. "Well, he was a teenager, at any rate."
Dan snorts, shaking his head. "You are one shady motherfucker."
Carter gives him a shit-eating grin. "You like it."
Worst part is, Dan does.
Carter shifts on the bed, slithering up next to Dan, who up until now has been lying on his stomach and attempting to get some writing done. "You know," Carter murmurs, low in Dan's ear, "I fucked Blair Waldorf too."
Dan's fingers stutter on the laptop keys, ending the sentence he'd been writing with a jumble of nonsense letters. "You did not," he says, even as he thinks back to the kitchen. Blair hadn't denied being among Carter's everyone. "When?"
"Oh, she had a bad girl phase for about two minutes… Being a bad man, I took advantage."
Dan's heart is suddenly thumping hard against his ribcage, something akin to betrayal swirling through him. But that's ridiculous. He has no reason to feel anything like that. Carter leans in to kiss Dan's neck below his ear, lips soft and hot.
"Want a play-by-play?"
"No," Dan huffs. "It's none of my business."
"But you're curious."
He can feel Carter watching him, so he makes a point of resuming his typing, even if his brain is now essentially blank. "That doesn't make it my business."
Fluid as anything, Carter pushes up and levers himself over Dan, settling on top of him. His mouth presses to the back of Dan's neck briefly. "Quick question: do you miss fucking girls?"
Dan shuts his laptop.
He doesn't even know how one goes about picking up a girl to have sex with oneself and one's shady hook-up, and he rejects asking Serena on grounds of feeling weird about it ("But she's great at threesomes," Carter tries.). Luckily for him his shady hook-up is Carter, and Carter knows all about finding random girls to have sex with.
They go out for drinks, Dan a little anxious but trying to hide it. He excuses himself to the bathroom for a mere five minutes and by the time he returns, there is already a girl sitting at the table next to Carter and laughing at his jokes. It's that fast, blink and you'll miss it, and Dan would be suspicious of Carter's sweet-talking skills if he hadn't experienced them firsthand.
Carter grins wide when he spots Dan. "Danny," he says, knowing Dan hates that, "Meet our new friend Marisol."
"Dan," Dan corrects, finding a smile as he reaches for her hand. "He knows I hate that."
Marisol is petite and strikingly pretty with dark hair swept back off her shoulders. She has a square-shaped face, strong jaw balancing out startlingly symmetrical features. When she smiles, shallow dimples crease her cheeks.
"How long have you two been together?" she asks.
Dan opens his mouth to say something snide but Carter gets there first. "Officially? Two months," he says, sliding an arm around Dan's shoulders.
"Unofficially –" Dan starts.
"Matter of perspective," Carter says with a wink.
"You have absolutely got to cut it out with that winking shit," Dan says, and Marisol laughs.
She must be into the whole boyfriends thing, because Carter plays it up through a few more rounds of drinks. He's always been a man free with endearments but he levels up in front of Marisol – it's all honey this and baby that, and even one or two skin-tingling sweethearts. It's not just that, either; the way he touches Dan becomes stupidly gentle, and Dan finds himself embarrassingly into it too. It's a warm hand curled around the back of his neck, a laughing kiss pressed to his cheek. He thinks of the time Carter promised he could be so tender it'd be shattering.
Eventually the evening winds down and Carter leans across the table, all low-voiced persuasion. "So what do you say, beautiful? Interested or not?"
Marisol's lips purse thoughtfully, gaze shifting between them, and then she shrugs, posture relaxing in the span of a breath. Her eyes almost seem to glitter. "Oh, what the hell. Might as well cross it off my bucket list."
Carter laughs. "Attagirl."
In the cab, Carter kisses her, his fingertips on the strong line of her jaw. He looks at Dan over the curve of her cheek, just blue eyes and a wry grin that softens against Marisol's mouth. Carter's hand pauses on her thigh, stroking back and forth, until she glances quickly at the back of the driver's head and bites her lip, gives Carter a murmured, "Go ahead."
So his hand skims higher, disappearing under the scalloped edge of her black skirt. She sucks in a very, very soft breath, shifting in her seat as Carter slowly drags her panties down until they tangle at her ankles and she kicks them away. Someone should probably retrieve them from the cab floor but Dan imagines they're all just too distracted.
"Give her a kiss, sweetheart," Carter says.
"You're so bossy," Dan tells him, but he's already leaning in to do it. This is Dan's worst behavior in the back of a cab yet, but she tastes so sweet, like cherries and amaretto, that a little bad behavior feels almost warranted. Carter's fingers twist with his, tugging him away from Marisol to steal a kiss of his own; playing the possessive boyfriend, maybe. The cabdriver sighs, an exhausted huff.
The car pulls over a few moments later, Carter and Marisol piling out first and leaving Dan to awkwardly pay the fare with a cringing "sorry?" They hightail it up all five flights, arriving breathless on the landing, Marisol resting against the wall with exaggerated exhaustion.
"You guys need to invest in a building with an elevator," she says. She reaches out to grab a handful of Dan's shirt and haul him over, tilting her face up to kiss him.
"That's what I'm always telling him," Carter says airily as he fishes Dan's keys out of his pocket, because Carter is always losing his own.
Dan fixes his mouth on Marisol's throat, teeth gentle. "He's full of shit, you know."
She seems amused by that. "Who isn't?"
With a click and a sweep, the door opens, Carter reaching over to pull Marisol away from Dan and into the apartment. "You wanna know the truth? Dan and I actually share an ex-girlfriend. It's how we met."
Dan follows them in, watching as Carter peels the jacket from her shoulders and opens the buttons of her blouse one by one. "That's interesting," Marisol says, but she sounds both disinterested and doubtful. She plucks Carter's belt open, slides his zipper down, and slips her hand in.
Carter releases a soft, bitten-off moan. "God's honest. And you know what she told me?" He turns Marisol around and pulls her against his chest so they're both looking over in Dan's direction. "She told me Dan gave the best head she ever had in her life. How about that?"
Now Marisol seems a good deal more interested.
"'Course he's fucking terrible at it with guys," Carter continues. "Can't suck a dick worth a damn."
"I don't put in that much effort with you," Dan says.
Carter smiles but hides it against Marisol's shoulder. "So, sweetheart," he says to her, and the back of Dan's neck prickles. "How do you want it?"
"I'll give him a shot." She tries to sound cavalier but it just comes off breathless, and her gaze keeps pulling to Dan's mouth. He gives her half a smile, drifting closer until he can get on his knees in front of her.
"I'll do my best," he says.
Carter tugs her skirt up obligingly. Her panties are still forgotten somewhere in a New York City taxi, and Dan leans forward to part her with his tongue, deliberate and careful. He looks up and almost laughs to see both of them so intensely watching him, mirrored expressions of lip-biting anticipation. Carter has a hand tucked into the cup of her bra.
The pressure is on for Dan, what with Carter talking him up to the point of ridiculousness, but for once he doesn't feel out of his element. He may not be the best ever in this particular woman's life but this is something he can do, and has done, well. He gives himself up to it, first just mapping her sensitive skin, a little cool from exposure but getting hotter. His lips move over her with purposeful softness, dropping kisses along her cunt like he would anywhere else, like he would kiss her mouth.
He chances a look up again and sees Marisol's eyes tightly closed, her head tipped back, Carter whispering in her ear. Whatever he's saying is probably doing half as much work as Dan is, but Dan isn't really interested in sharing the workload. He nips her thigh sharply to get her attention and then redoubles his efforts.
He focuses everything he's got on her previously ignored clit, sucking and licking and nibbling until he can feel her legs tense and tremble on either side of him. A hand is tight in his hair but it feels like Carter's hand, feels recognizable, and Dan is emboldened, strangely, by that. The angle's iffy but he sinks his tongue inside her as much as he reasonably can then sucks a messy kiss on the surrounding skin, slick and sharp – the taste of her is specifically hers but holds something in common with other women, makes Dan realize just how much he likes this, missed this, wanted this. He's hard but it's a distant feeling, just the ticking of his heartbeat in his body and the pulse of hers against his tongue.
"I'm gonna –" Marisol gasps, but she's wriggling away instead of closer. "Not yet, not yet, I wanna save it."
"I think you're allowed more than one," Dan jokes, but dutifully sits back, raising a hand to wipe his mouth. Then he notices the way Carter's watching him and puts his hand back down.
Carter gives Marisol a nudge but he's still looking at Dan when he tells her, "Bedroom's through there, honey."
Dan rises as Carter reaches for him. "You'll just call anyone that, won't you."
"You want me to save it just for you?" Carter holds Dan's face between his hands, sucks lightly on Dan's bottom lip, tastes Marisol on him. "Want to be the only one called sweet things?"
Dan doesn't know if they're still putting on the show for company, because Marisol is in the other room and, anyway, it doesn't feel very much like playing. Dan makes a low, noncommittal sound before kissing Carter, being kissed.
"I can do that, sweetheart," Carter says, and Dan just wants him to shut up now, so the next kiss is harder, and so's the next after. They kiss until Carter bites Dan's mouth roughly, almost savagely, and it's that, or a combination of everything, that has Dan pressing so close they stumble as they stand there. It's single-minded and furious and Dan wants nothing more than to take Carter to bed, forgetting momentarily that there's another person waiting for them there.
Until she speaks. Marisol's voice floats in from the other room, doing her level best at beguiling: "Boys?"
They have a good time with Marisol, who proves to be uninhibited and good-natured, so exactly what they were looking for that Dan is half-ready to write the entire night off as a fever dream. She leaves sometime in the early hours while they're sleeping, her name and number printed in liquid liner on Carter's bicep.
"God, what a girl," Carter says, admiring it. "Look at that, no smudges."
But Dan is still thinking of the night before, and, well – he's been fucking Carter exclusively for two entire months (officially) and he doesn't know if Carter's been with other people but he can't imagine how Carter could find the time since they're always together. Carter's always looking for a place to crash so he ends up sleeping at Dan's a lot, ordering in and staking claim to the spare toothbrush. Sometimes they even go out for dinner. And, once, to a movie.
Horrified, Dan wonders aloud, "Am I your boyfriend?"
Carter looks up from the phone number on his arm, repulsed. "Dan, I'm comfortable, I don't wanna have to get up to puke."
Dan's tense shoulders relax fractionally. "But we are…friends, sort of?"
Carter considers this. "Sort of," he says finally. "Dick friends."
PART THREE