190. left hook (2/10)
Title | left hook
Chapter | two
Rating | pg-13
Characters | Dan + Blair. Serena, Nate, Eric, Jenny.
Summary | Also known as the Blair Is From Brooklyn and Dan is a WASP-y Rich Kid AU.
The sky is cloudless, bright with the sun, on the day of the Ivy Mixer. Dan wakes up early, full of nervous energy, and leans out of his window, smoking three cigarettes in a row. He waves at the air in his room lazily as he ducks back in, tying to make sure it doesn't smell. It's too early for Serena to invade his bathroom, so he takes a shower and shaves, goes back into his room to find his St. Jude's uniform neatly laid out on his bed, which has been made with sharp corners.
Before he gets dressed, he does his last minute prep work: skimming over his favourite passages in the Yale rep's best-selling book and running over a list of answers to possible questions, reviewing his career goals, his practiced answers about his hobbies and passions. When he's dressed, he leaves his room, only to find Lily at Serena's door, impatiently asking her to get ready on time.
Serena opens her door, bleary-eyed and wearing a pair of Nate's plaid pyjama pants with her tank top. "I don't understand why I have to go."
"Just because you didn't get the escort position, that doesn't mean you can skip the event altogether. Get dressed." Lily gestures to Dan. "You should support your brother."
"She doesn't have to support me," Dan says. "I'll be fine."
Lily looks at him over her glasses, clearly not appreciating that response. "Get dressed, Serena," she says firmly.
"Fine," Serena sighs, shutting her door again.
Lily sighs heavily. "Honestly, that girl…"
"I have no idea where she gets it from," Rufus says teasingly as he comes down the hall, wrapping his arms around Lily; she swats at him, laughing.
"This," Dan says, gesturing to them, "is not what I need this morning."
Rufus laughs, letting go of Lily. "We're very proud of you, Dan. You're going to be great today."
"Make sure not to limit yourself," Lily says, patting her hair. "Don't spend every moment of your time entertaining the Yale representative, make sure to meet the others as well."
Dan sighs. "I'll talk to the Harvard guy, I promise."
"Good," Lily says warmly. "You won't regret it, I'm sure."
"I'm sure," Dan echoes, just a touch wryly.
Serena steps out of her room then, in a dress this time, her hair an artful mess. "Okay, I'm ready. Let's go."
Lily's lips pinch together but she nods, patting Rufus' arm. "Call us a car, dear," she says.
The Yale rep's name is Walsh Summerby. He isn't exactly unfriendly but he looks around with an air of distaste, seeming distracted by the fact that he has no desire to be spending his Saturday afternoon at a high school.
"Why Yale?" Walsh asks Dan at one point, apparently deciding to actually do his job in the middle of Dan's spiel on the Constance/St. Jude's film noir society.
The question takes Dan a bit by surprise, despite how intensely he's prepared to answer it. "I - my mother went there," he ends up saying, somehow. "She always described her time at Yale as the best time of her life. And the academics," he adds quickly a beat later, but Walsh is looking around the courtyard again, apparently not listening. Dan clears his throat. "Let me get you a fresh drink," he says, side-stepping toward the refreshment table.
He passes Nate on his way, who appears to be struggling to entertain the Dartmouth rep. Serena slips past him, too, touching a hand to Nate's back for a lingering moment, a silent gesture of support, and Dan figures he's probably doing okay.
It turns out that Blair is at the refreshment table, pale blue uniform shirt tucked into her plaid skirt, carefully ladling punch into small glasses.
"Hey," he says.
She looks up at him, face framed by her neatly curled hair. "Hi."
There's a beat of slightly awkward silence and then he holds up two fingers. "Two, please."
She picks up another glass. "How is it?" she asks with a purposefully unmasked hint of bitterness.
"It's alright," Dan says, shoving his hands into his pockets. He watches her for a moment and then says, "You want to take these over to Summerby?"
Her eyes meet his. "What?"
"I'll trade you," he says. "Go talk to Summerby for half an hour; I'll man the table."
She studies him. "Do you even know how to serve others?"
Dan rolls his eyes. "I can handle it. Go entertain the guy."
Blair's still for a beat and then she says, "Alright," as she picks up the glasses and starts to move into the crowd.
"You're welcome," Dan says pointedly.
She glances over her shoulder at him, maybe almost smiling, and then goes to introduce herself to the rep.
Blair charms Summerby; when Dan finds them again after passing over refreshment duties to an underclassman, they're laughing, talking about John Donne.
"Ah," Summerby says then he sees Dan. "I thought you'd gotten lost."
Dan half-smiles. "Blair was nice enough to volunteer to bring you a drink."
Summerby smiles for the first time since Dan's met him. "It was entirely my pleasure. It was very nice to meet you, Miss Waldorf."
"It was very nice to meet you, too," she says, and it might be the first time Dan's seen her smile genuinely, too.
After the official speeches and several more cups of punch, Dan excuses himself from a conversation in which Serena is completely impressing Nate's Dartmouth rep by flipping her hair and smiling beguiling smiles. He goes inside the school and finds Blair sitting at the bottom of the set of stairs he's walking down.
"Hey," he says as he moves toward her. "I have to thank you. You really impressed the rap."
"I should thank you, too," Blair says softly.
Dan drops down to sit next to her. "Yeah, you should," he agrees. "You - " He pauses, studying what he can see of her face through her hair. "Are you crying?"
"No," she says, but she lifts a hand to her face, wiping at her cheek.
Dan frowns. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she says, turning her face away from him.
"I might be crazy," he says, "but I don't think people cry when nothing's wrong."
She blows out a breath. "It's just - "
He nudges his elbow against her side very lightly, the way he does to Jenny when she's pouty and upset. "Just what?"
She pinches her nose. "My dad can't come."
"Oh," Dan says. "Work?"
"No," she says, sighing quietly. "His…boyfriend."
"Oh," he says again.
"They're at a book launch," she murmurs. "He said he'd forgotten that they RSVP'd." She exhales sharply. "This was always…our thing. Planning for college. Planning for Yale."
"I'm sorry," Dan says.
"It just - " She brushes her fingers beneath her eyes. "I didn't get the escort position and now my dad's not here, and it…"
"Sucks," he says, supplying a word for her. "Parents suck."
She looks at him doubtfully, mascara smudged on her bottom eyelids. "Your dad's a famous record producer."
Dan shrugs. "That doesn't mean he's always a good dad. He doesn't want me to go to Yale."
A little wrinkle appears between her brows. "Why not?"
"Because it's where my mom went. It upsets Lily every time I mention it. My dad would rather I went to Harvard, like she did."
"That's not fair," she observes softly.
"No." He looks into her face. "Neither is your dad not showing up."
Blair tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, and Dan can almost see her walls going up. "I'll survive."
"Of course," he says.
She pinches her nose between two fingers. "I'd appreciate you not telling anyone about this."
"Oh," Dan says. "I already texted everyone in my phone."
She slides him a look, sour and unimpressed. "That isn't funny."
He half-smiles. "It's a little funny."
"It would be funny if it were you." Blair studies her feet. "It's not funny when you're the scholarship kid."
It occurs to Dan then that these last few days are the first time he's ever really seen Blair, and that she's probably been going to Constance this whole time. She was never hanging out at Serena's parties or teasing Jenny so he never noticed her, realized she was around. He wonders who her friends are. He wonders if reading at lunch is a choice for her, like it is for him.
"You know that means you're smarter than the rest of these idiots," he finally says.
"Including you."
His eyebrows lift. "Including me, huh?"
"Including you," she says firmly.
Dan considers her. "You're a little full of yourself, Waldorf."
She glances pointedly around the elaborate hall with its crown moulding and wooden lockers. "What else am I supposed to be?"
"Touché," he says softly.
She looks back over at him, lips pressed together. "Your family's probably wondering where you are."
He smiles. "My parents are socializing and Serena's with Nate, I think they're all okay without me."
Blair rolls her eyes. "I'm trying to politely tell you to go. Take a hint."
Dan laughs. "Okay, okay. Hint taken." He gets to his feet. "Are you going to be - "
"Yes," she says, before he can finish.
"Okay," he says, belatedly. He studies her for a moment. "You really wowed Summerby, you know. After you left he hardly stopped talking about you."
She shrugs, faux-modest. "I tend to wow," she says quietly. It's obviously meant to be haughty but her voice is so soft that Dan wonders if she believes it.
"Yeah," he says, turning to walk away, moving backward, still looking at her. "I bet you do."
Dan starts to notice, after that, that Blair is there. He waves when he sees her in the hallways, in the courtyard, by the Met. He realizes that Serena's doing the same thing, but more overtly; she yells hellos to Blair across the courtyard, sits down next to her at lunch, pauses by her locker in the hallway. It seems like an incredibly unlikely friendship, but Serena's always been like that - when they were fourteen she befriended a pretentious photographer kid who fell in love with her, making Nate insanely jealous.
Dan leans a shoulder against the stone wall, watching Serena talk with her hands, watching Blair resist the urge to laugh and then finally give in, and weirdly kind of starts to get how Nate might've felt.
One Friday after school Dan gets home a little later than everyone else - he'd taken twenty minutes to make out with Nelly in the back of her town car - and discovers Serena, Jenny, Eric, and Blair in the less formal living room, the one their parents tend to leave to them, sitting in a little circle on the floor with face masks on.
"Hey, Dan," Jenny greets, a giggle in her voice, bright pink goo slathered all over her face.
Eric just looks up at him, his face green and his eyes asking for help.
Dan stifles a laugh. "What are you doing to the poor kid?" he asks.
"Eric will thank us when his t-zone is zit-free," Jenny says, sticking her tongue out at Eric.
Blair has something white all over her face and she gives him a small, awkward wave, like she might be blushing under all that junk on her cheeks. "Hi," she says.
"Dan, we saved the guava one for you," Serena says, holding up a packet full of something purple.
"Uh, no," he says. "No thanks."
"Hey," Eric protests. "If I have to do it - "
"You're small and nice," Dan says. "You have no defenses."
Serena looks at him with those big, blue I-get-everything-I-want eyes. "Nate would do it."
"Because Nate would do anything for you," Dan says, edging out of the room. "I have no such obligations."
"Dan," Jenny whines. "It's good for you."
"I'll pass," he says. "I think I'll survive."
Jenny hops to her feet. "No, you won't."
Eric gets up, too. "It's for your own good," he says seriously, eyes twinkling in the middle of the facemask.
Dan gives them his sternest, older-brother look. "No."
"I vote yes," Serena says casually, leaning back, hands propped behind her on the floor. "What about you, B?"
Blair blinks a little and then smiles slightly, nods. "I vote yes."
"Four against one," Eric says solemnly as Jenny starts advancing. "That's democracy."
Dan holds a hand out toward Jenny. "Don't you dare."
It doesn't work, of course, and Eric and Jenny have tackled him onto a chair half a second later. Serena opens the pouch of purple goo and starts to put it on his cheeks.
Dan could move, if he really wanted to, but he doesn't feel like actually fighting Eric and Jenny off, so he just says, tone resigned, "I hate you."
Blair shows up to help Serena, smoothes the purple stuff over his nose. "Likewise," she says sunnily, smirking.
"Naked Dan!" Jenny exclaims, giggling as she takes a photo out of album. They're gathered around a pile of albums, faces still varying colours, helping Jenny pick pictures for some family collage project she has to do for art class.
"Jen," Dan says, grabbing for it, but she hands it to Serena instead.
"Aw, little Dan in the bath," Serena laughs, handing it over to Eric.
"I was three," he huffs. His skin is starting to feel weirdly stretched under his eyes.
"You have a very nice rubber duck," Eric teases, handing the picture to Blair, which makes Dan's frown deepen.
"You used to be blonde," Blair says, surprised.
Dan nods. "Until I was four or five."
"Then Dad's genes took over," Jenny teases, flipping a page.
Blair sets the photo down on the growing pile. "Where are your embarrassing baby pictures?" she asks Eric and Serena with a little smile.
Serena shrugs, ignoring the question and flipping through more pages of the album in front of her. "Do you want wedding stuff, Jen?"
Jenny nods. "Yes, please. I'm going for a chronology thing."
Blair peers at the pictures. "Your mother looks beautiful," she says softly.
Jenny nods. "That was the prettiest dress," she says a little wistfully.
"Yeah," Serena murmurs.
Eric shifts a little closer to her, tilting over to lean his shoulder against hers; she touches his hand lightly, hooking her pinkie over his.
Dan clears his throat. "Can we wash this junk off our faces now?"
Serena looks up, eyes all somber for a moment before she smiles and says, "Yeah, I think we can."
"Finally," Eric breathes, but he waits a moment to straighten up.
Jenny hops to her feet, tells Blair, "C'mon, you can use my bathroom."
Blair nods, getting to her feet as well. "Okay."
They go off but Dan waits a moment, studying Eric and Serena. "Alright?" he checks quietly.
Serena looks at him, smiling. "Doesn't this make your face feel weird?" she asks, getting up and walking off without waiting for a response.
Dan attempts to lift an eyebrow at Eric, but he's not sure if the stuff on his face allows it or not.
Eric smiles. "She's fine, she's a big girl."
Dan glances at the wedding photographs, everyone smiling but little Serena, seven-year-old eyes very solemn. He hadn't been all that happy about his dad getting married again, either, but she had been as heartbroken as a little girl can be. "Yeah," he says. "Right."
"C'mon," Eric says, getting up. "Face-washing."
"Right," Dan says again, closing the album. "Finally."
In the time it takes Dan to make his face its natural colour again, Jenny and Serena decide that they all need to go out that night. Nate is called; dinner reservations are made at Butter.
"Seriously, Serena?" Eric sighs.
She gives him a bright smile. "Jonathon can come," she tempts.
Eric considers, and then says, "Okay, I'll text him."
Serena beams. "Awesome. We'll have so much fun."
Dan sighs. "Remember when we all used to do our own thing on the weekend and just occasionally run into each other?"
"Yes," Eric says. "Fondly."
"Shut up, E," Serena says, swatting at him gently. "It'll be fun."
Blair clears her throat, a delicate little cough. "I should probably go home."
Serena whirls around, hair flying out around her shoulders. "What? No."
"I'm supposed to have dinner with my dad," Blair says.
"No," Serena pouts. "No, come out with us, you have to. We'll have so much fun."
"Speak for yourself," Dan mumbles, wincing slightly when Serena glares at him over her shoulder.
"It doesn't really sound like…my thing," Blair says hesitantly.
Serena touches her arms. "You'll have so much fun, I promise."
"I don't have anything to wear," Blair says.
Serena gives her a look. "What are friends for?"
"We're hardly the same size…"
"We'll find something super short of mine for you. Or something of Jenny's!"
"Come on," Jenny pleads, looking at Blair hopefully.
"I don't…" Blair bites her lip, clearly searching for a new excuse.
Dan realizes abruptly that by normal standards, dinner at Butter isn't cheap. "You've gotta come," he says, as casually as he can. "I mean, Serena's going to treat us all."
Serena shoots him a slightly confused look but just says, "Yes. Now you can't say no, it'd be rude."
Blair looks at him, lips pursed just a little, like she can't discern his motives. "Fine," she says, at last. "I'll come."
Jenny and Serena cheer, Eric rolls his eyes a little at the noise, and Dan just smiles.
Blair ends up sitting next to him at dinner, probably because Serena is already drunk and Eric and Nate are sitting on either side of her, amused but prepared to do damage control. Serena looks the way she always does when she goes out, all sparkly and bright.
Serena's clothes don't have quite the same effect on Blair. The strapless dress is making her self-conscious; she keeps tugging at the top of it, making sure it doesn't fall down. Serena's makeup looks a little out of place on Blair's face, looks like a little too much. Still, Dan can see the way it's all working for her - the dark blue dress suits her and all the eyeliner keeps making her eyes grab his attention.
He realizes, somewhere between his first drink and his fourth, that Blair's kind of beautiful, not the kind of beauty that hits you in the face like Serena's but a different kind, a classic kind, and Dan's always been a sucker for the classics.
They go home after dinner because Serena's in six martinis and an indeterminate amount of shots. Nate takes her outside and sits next to her on the curb, talking to her softly, while Dan pays for dinner.
Blair watches them through the glass doors of the restaurant, buttoning up her coat, which is just a bit incongruous, a little faded at the edges, when paired with her silky dress. "Is she alright?" she wonders.
"Oh, she's fine," Dan promises her, signing the receipt. "That's just…Serena," he says. "She gets like that sometimes."
"Doesn't seem all that healthy."
"She's seventeen," Dan says wryly.
"So are you. So am I. So's Nate."
"And we all get a little drunk sometimes," Dan shrugs. "A little high sometimes."
Blair tilts her head toward Serena and Nate outside, genuinely worry on her face. "That doesn't seem like a little," she says softly.
"She's fine," Dan says firmly, starting to frown.
"Hey," Eric interrupts, popping his head in. "I hailed cabs, let's go home."
Dan nods, relieved to see him. "Yeah, let's go." He holds the door open for Blair, doesn't look at her as she walks past him.
Eric and Jonathon go back to Jonathon's house, so Dan ends up squished into the backseat of a cab with Jenny, Blair, Serena, and Nate. Jenny's liquor-sleepy, leaning against his shoulder, and Serena's very quiet all of a sudden, slumped against Nate slightly. When they get home, Nate gets out first and pulls her out gently after him, murmurs, "C'mon, baby…"
Dan leans out of the cab once Jenny's out, too. "Make sure Lily and Dad don't hear you," he warns them. "And lots of water. And - "
"Make sure she falls asleep on her side, dude, yeah - I've got it," Nate says, nodding at him and then scooping Serena up.
"I'll drop Blair off at home," Dan tells Jenny.
"You don't need to - "
"No, he should," Jenny says. "You shouldn't go by yourself." She smiles at Blair, sleepy-eyed. "I'm really glad you came!"
Blair smiles back at her, softly. "Thanks for inviting me, Jenny."
Jenny gives them both a little wave and then turns to go inside; Dan closes the door and lets Blair tell the driver her address.
They're both very quiet for several moments and then Dan says, tersely, "I don't need you judging my sister."
Blair's head snaps over toward him. "I wasn't judging - "
"Yes, you were."
"I wasn't. I was just - she's seventeen, it shouldn't be this normal thing where you all know what to do when she gets that drunk, it shouldn't be something that happens all the time."
Dan glowers at her. "That's not judging?"
Blair crosses her arms. "It's ridiculous that she gets to become a teenage alcoholic just because you're all spoiled rich kids."
"She's not an alcoholic," Dan says. "She drinks sometimes. We all do. It's not a big deal and it's actually none of your business."
"Just because your parents aren't ever around - "
"Oh, and yours are?" he interrupts pointedly, and knows a half-second later, when he sees hurt flash through her eyes, that it was going too far.
Blair's quiet, too quiet, for a long moment, and then she says sharply, "You don't know me. Just because we had one ten-minute conversation in a hallway and your sisters tried to enact the plot of Pretty Woman with me, that doesn't mean you know anything about me."
"So you can judge me, but I can't judge you?"
"I didn't judge you," she says in that same sharp tone. She blows out a breath. "Until now."
Dan feels chagrined but still defensive, and he says, hesitantly, "Blair - "
The taxi comes to a stop in front of the curb and Blair opens the door quickly, fumbling with the handle for a beat. She doesn't say a word to him, just slams the door behind her, hard.
Dan slumps down on the seat, defeated and angry, watching her walk away in a pair of Jenny's heels.
tbc.
Chapter | two
Rating | pg-13
Characters | Dan + Blair. Serena, Nate, Eric, Jenny.
Summary | Also known as the Blair Is From Brooklyn and Dan is a WASP-y Rich Kid AU.
The sky is cloudless, bright with the sun, on the day of the Ivy Mixer. Dan wakes up early, full of nervous energy, and leans out of his window, smoking three cigarettes in a row. He waves at the air in his room lazily as he ducks back in, tying to make sure it doesn't smell. It's too early for Serena to invade his bathroom, so he takes a shower and shaves, goes back into his room to find his St. Jude's uniform neatly laid out on his bed, which has been made with sharp corners.
Before he gets dressed, he does his last minute prep work: skimming over his favourite passages in the Yale rep's best-selling book and running over a list of answers to possible questions, reviewing his career goals, his practiced answers about his hobbies and passions. When he's dressed, he leaves his room, only to find Lily at Serena's door, impatiently asking her to get ready on time.
Serena opens her door, bleary-eyed and wearing a pair of Nate's plaid pyjama pants with her tank top. "I don't understand why I have to go."
"Just because you didn't get the escort position, that doesn't mean you can skip the event altogether. Get dressed." Lily gestures to Dan. "You should support your brother."
"She doesn't have to support me," Dan says. "I'll be fine."
Lily looks at him over her glasses, clearly not appreciating that response. "Get dressed, Serena," she says firmly.
"Fine," Serena sighs, shutting her door again.
Lily sighs heavily. "Honestly, that girl…"
"I have no idea where she gets it from," Rufus says teasingly as he comes down the hall, wrapping his arms around Lily; she swats at him, laughing.
"This," Dan says, gesturing to them, "is not what I need this morning."
Rufus laughs, letting go of Lily. "We're very proud of you, Dan. You're going to be great today."
"Make sure not to limit yourself," Lily says, patting her hair. "Don't spend every moment of your time entertaining the Yale representative, make sure to meet the others as well."
Dan sighs. "I'll talk to the Harvard guy, I promise."
"Good," Lily says warmly. "You won't regret it, I'm sure."
"I'm sure," Dan echoes, just a touch wryly.
Serena steps out of her room then, in a dress this time, her hair an artful mess. "Okay, I'm ready. Let's go."
Lily's lips pinch together but she nods, patting Rufus' arm. "Call us a car, dear," she says.
The Yale rep's name is Walsh Summerby. He isn't exactly unfriendly but he looks around with an air of distaste, seeming distracted by the fact that he has no desire to be spending his Saturday afternoon at a high school.
"Why Yale?" Walsh asks Dan at one point, apparently deciding to actually do his job in the middle of Dan's spiel on the Constance/St. Jude's film noir society.
The question takes Dan a bit by surprise, despite how intensely he's prepared to answer it. "I - my mother went there," he ends up saying, somehow. "She always described her time at Yale as the best time of her life. And the academics," he adds quickly a beat later, but Walsh is looking around the courtyard again, apparently not listening. Dan clears his throat. "Let me get you a fresh drink," he says, side-stepping toward the refreshment table.
He passes Nate on his way, who appears to be struggling to entertain the Dartmouth rep. Serena slips past him, too, touching a hand to Nate's back for a lingering moment, a silent gesture of support, and Dan figures he's probably doing okay.
It turns out that Blair is at the refreshment table, pale blue uniform shirt tucked into her plaid skirt, carefully ladling punch into small glasses.
"Hey," he says.
She looks up at him, face framed by her neatly curled hair. "Hi."
There's a beat of slightly awkward silence and then he holds up two fingers. "Two, please."
She picks up another glass. "How is it?" she asks with a purposefully unmasked hint of bitterness.
"It's alright," Dan says, shoving his hands into his pockets. He watches her for a moment and then says, "You want to take these over to Summerby?"
Her eyes meet his. "What?"
"I'll trade you," he says. "Go talk to Summerby for half an hour; I'll man the table."
She studies him. "Do you even know how to serve others?"
Dan rolls his eyes. "I can handle it. Go entertain the guy."
Blair's still for a beat and then she says, "Alright," as she picks up the glasses and starts to move into the crowd.
"You're welcome," Dan says pointedly.
She glances over her shoulder at him, maybe almost smiling, and then goes to introduce herself to the rep.
Blair charms Summerby; when Dan finds them again after passing over refreshment duties to an underclassman, they're laughing, talking about John Donne.
"Ah," Summerby says then he sees Dan. "I thought you'd gotten lost."
Dan half-smiles. "Blair was nice enough to volunteer to bring you a drink."
Summerby smiles for the first time since Dan's met him. "It was entirely my pleasure. It was very nice to meet you, Miss Waldorf."
"It was very nice to meet you, too," she says, and it might be the first time Dan's seen her smile genuinely, too.
After the official speeches and several more cups of punch, Dan excuses himself from a conversation in which Serena is completely impressing Nate's Dartmouth rep by flipping her hair and smiling beguiling smiles. He goes inside the school and finds Blair sitting at the bottom of the set of stairs he's walking down.
"Hey," he says as he moves toward her. "I have to thank you. You really impressed the rap."
"I should thank you, too," Blair says softly.
Dan drops down to sit next to her. "Yeah, you should," he agrees. "You - " He pauses, studying what he can see of her face through her hair. "Are you crying?"
"No," she says, but she lifts a hand to her face, wiping at her cheek.
Dan frowns. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she says, turning her face away from him.
"I might be crazy," he says, "but I don't think people cry when nothing's wrong."
She blows out a breath. "It's just - "
He nudges his elbow against her side very lightly, the way he does to Jenny when she's pouty and upset. "Just what?"
She pinches her nose. "My dad can't come."
"Oh," Dan says. "Work?"
"No," she says, sighing quietly. "His…boyfriend."
"Oh," he says again.
"They're at a book launch," she murmurs. "He said he'd forgotten that they RSVP'd." She exhales sharply. "This was always…our thing. Planning for college. Planning for Yale."
"I'm sorry," Dan says.
"It just - " She brushes her fingers beneath her eyes. "I didn't get the escort position and now my dad's not here, and it…"
"Sucks," he says, supplying a word for her. "Parents suck."
She looks at him doubtfully, mascara smudged on her bottom eyelids. "Your dad's a famous record producer."
Dan shrugs. "That doesn't mean he's always a good dad. He doesn't want me to go to Yale."
A little wrinkle appears between her brows. "Why not?"
"Because it's where my mom went. It upsets Lily every time I mention it. My dad would rather I went to Harvard, like she did."
"That's not fair," she observes softly.
"No." He looks into her face. "Neither is your dad not showing up."
Blair tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, and Dan can almost see her walls going up. "I'll survive."
"Of course," he says.
She pinches her nose between two fingers. "I'd appreciate you not telling anyone about this."
"Oh," Dan says. "I already texted everyone in my phone."
She slides him a look, sour and unimpressed. "That isn't funny."
He half-smiles. "It's a little funny."
"It would be funny if it were you." Blair studies her feet. "It's not funny when you're the scholarship kid."
It occurs to Dan then that these last few days are the first time he's ever really seen Blair, and that she's probably been going to Constance this whole time. She was never hanging out at Serena's parties or teasing Jenny so he never noticed her, realized she was around. He wonders who her friends are. He wonders if reading at lunch is a choice for her, like it is for him.
"You know that means you're smarter than the rest of these idiots," he finally says.
"Including you."
His eyebrows lift. "Including me, huh?"
"Including you," she says firmly.
Dan considers her. "You're a little full of yourself, Waldorf."
She glances pointedly around the elaborate hall with its crown moulding and wooden lockers. "What else am I supposed to be?"
"Touché," he says softly.
She looks back over at him, lips pressed together. "Your family's probably wondering where you are."
He smiles. "My parents are socializing and Serena's with Nate, I think they're all okay without me."
Blair rolls her eyes. "I'm trying to politely tell you to go. Take a hint."
Dan laughs. "Okay, okay. Hint taken." He gets to his feet. "Are you going to be - "
"Yes," she says, before he can finish.
"Okay," he says, belatedly. He studies her for a moment. "You really wowed Summerby, you know. After you left he hardly stopped talking about you."
She shrugs, faux-modest. "I tend to wow," she says quietly. It's obviously meant to be haughty but her voice is so soft that Dan wonders if she believes it.
"Yeah," he says, turning to walk away, moving backward, still looking at her. "I bet you do."
Dan starts to notice, after that, that Blair is there. He waves when he sees her in the hallways, in the courtyard, by the Met. He realizes that Serena's doing the same thing, but more overtly; she yells hellos to Blair across the courtyard, sits down next to her at lunch, pauses by her locker in the hallway. It seems like an incredibly unlikely friendship, but Serena's always been like that - when they were fourteen she befriended a pretentious photographer kid who fell in love with her, making Nate insanely jealous.
Dan leans a shoulder against the stone wall, watching Serena talk with her hands, watching Blair resist the urge to laugh and then finally give in, and weirdly kind of starts to get how Nate might've felt.
One Friday after school Dan gets home a little later than everyone else - he'd taken twenty minutes to make out with Nelly in the back of her town car - and discovers Serena, Jenny, Eric, and Blair in the less formal living room, the one their parents tend to leave to them, sitting in a little circle on the floor with face masks on.
"Hey, Dan," Jenny greets, a giggle in her voice, bright pink goo slathered all over her face.
Eric just looks up at him, his face green and his eyes asking for help.
Dan stifles a laugh. "What are you doing to the poor kid?" he asks.
"Eric will thank us when his t-zone is zit-free," Jenny says, sticking her tongue out at Eric.
Blair has something white all over her face and she gives him a small, awkward wave, like she might be blushing under all that junk on her cheeks. "Hi," she says.
"Dan, we saved the guava one for you," Serena says, holding up a packet full of something purple.
"Uh, no," he says. "No thanks."
"Hey," Eric protests. "If I have to do it - "
"You're small and nice," Dan says. "You have no defenses."
Serena looks at him with those big, blue I-get-everything-I-want eyes. "Nate would do it."
"Because Nate would do anything for you," Dan says, edging out of the room. "I have no such obligations."
"Dan," Jenny whines. "It's good for you."
"I'll pass," he says. "I think I'll survive."
Jenny hops to her feet. "No, you won't."
Eric gets up, too. "It's for your own good," he says seriously, eyes twinkling in the middle of the facemask.
Dan gives them his sternest, older-brother look. "No."
"I vote yes," Serena says casually, leaning back, hands propped behind her on the floor. "What about you, B?"
Blair blinks a little and then smiles slightly, nods. "I vote yes."
"Four against one," Eric says solemnly as Jenny starts advancing. "That's democracy."
Dan holds a hand out toward Jenny. "Don't you dare."
It doesn't work, of course, and Eric and Jenny have tackled him onto a chair half a second later. Serena opens the pouch of purple goo and starts to put it on his cheeks.
Dan could move, if he really wanted to, but he doesn't feel like actually fighting Eric and Jenny off, so he just says, tone resigned, "I hate you."
Blair shows up to help Serena, smoothes the purple stuff over his nose. "Likewise," she says sunnily, smirking.
"Naked Dan!" Jenny exclaims, giggling as she takes a photo out of album. They're gathered around a pile of albums, faces still varying colours, helping Jenny pick pictures for some family collage project she has to do for art class.
"Jen," Dan says, grabbing for it, but she hands it to Serena instead.
"Aw, little Dan in the bath," Serena laughs, handing it over to Eric.
"I was three," he huffs. His skin is starting to feel weirdly stretched under his eyes.
"You have a very nice rubber duck," Eric teases, handing the picture to Blair, which makes Dan's frown deepen.
"You used to be blonde," Blair says, surprised.
Dan nods. "Until I was four or five."
"Then Dad's genes took over," Jenny teases, flipping a page.
Blair sets the photo down on the growing pile. "Where are your embarrassing baby pictures?" she asks Eric and Serena with a little smile.
Serena shrugs, ignoring the question and flipping through more pages of the album in front of her. "Do you want wedding stuff, Jen?"
Jenny nods. "Yes, please. I'm going for a chronology thing."
Blair peers at the pictures. "Your mother looks beautiful," she says softly.
Jenny nods. "That was the prettiest dress," she says a little wistfully.
"Yeah," Serena murmurs.
Eric shifts a little closer to her, tilting over to lean his shoulder against hers; she touches his hand lightly, hooking her pinkie over his.
Dan clears his throat. "Can we wash this junk off our faces now?"
Serena looks up, eyes all somber for a moment before she smiles and says, "Yeah, I think we can."
"Finally," Eric breathes, but he waits a moment to straighten up.
Jenny hops to her feet, tells Blair, "C'mon, you can use my bathroom."
Blair nods, getting to her feet as well. "Okay."
They go off but Dan waits a moment, studying Eric and Serena. "Alright?" he checks quietly.
Serena looks at him, smiling. "Doesn't this make your face feel weird?" she asks, getting up and walking off without waiting for a response.
Dan attempts to lift an eyebrow at Eric, but he's not sure if the stuff on his face allows it or not.
Eric smiles. "She's fine, she's a big girl."
Dan glances at the wedding photographs, everyone smiling but little Serena, seven-year-old eyes very solemn. He hadn't been all that happy about his dad getting married again, either, but she had been as heartbroken as a little girl can be. "Yeah," he says. "Right."
"C'mon," Eric says, getting up. "Face-washing."
"Right," Dan says again, closing the album. "Finally."
In the time it takes Dan to make his face its natural colour again, Jenny and Serena decide that they all need to go out that night. Nate is called; dinner reservations are made at Butter.
"Seriously, Serena?" Eric sighs.
She gives him a bright smile. "Jonathon can come," she tempts.
Eric considers, and then says, "Okay, I'll text him."
Serena beams. "Awesome. We'll have so much fun."
Dan sighs. "Remember when we all used to do our own thing on the weekend and just occasionally run into each other?"
"Yes," Eric says. "Fondly."
"Shut up, E," Serena says, swatting at him gently. "It'll be fun."
Blair clears her throat, a delicate little cough. "I should probably go home."
Serena whirls around, hair flying out around her shoulders. "What? No."
"I'm supposed to have dinner with my dad," Blair says.
"No," Serena pouts. "No, come out with us, you have to. We'll have so much fun."
"Speak for yourself," Dan mumbles, wincing slightly when Serena glares at him over her shoulder.
"It doesn't really sound like…my thing," Blair says hesitantly.
Serena touches her arms. "You'll have so much fun, I promise."
"I don't have anything to wear," Blair says.
Serena gives her a look. "What are friends for?"
"We're hardly the same size…"
"We'll find something super short of mine for you. Or something of Jenny's!"
"Come on," Jenny pleads, looking at Blair hopefully.
"I don't…" Blair bites her lip, clearly searching for a new excuse.
Dan realizes abruptly that by normal standards, dinner at Butter isn't cheap. "You've gotta come," he says, as casually as he can. "I mean, Serena's going to treat us all."
Serena shoots him a slightly confused look but just says, "Yes. Now you can't say no, it'd be rude."
Blair looks at him, lips pursed just a little, like she can't discern his motives. "Fine," she says, at last. "I'll come."
Jenny and Serena cheer, Eric rolls his eyes a little at the noise, and Dan just smiles.
Blair ends up sitting next to him at dinner, probably because Serena is already drunk and Eric and Nate are sitting on either side of her, amused but prepared to do damage control. Serena looks the way she always does when she goes out, all sparkly and bright.
Serena's clothes don't have quite the same effect on Blair. The strapless dress is making her self-conscious; she keeps tugging at the top of it, making sure it doesn't fall down. Serena's makeup looks a little out of place on Blair's face, looks like a little too much. Still, Dan can see the way it's all working for her - the dark blue dress suits her and all the eyeliner keeps making her eyes grab his attention.
He realizes, somewhere between his first drink and his fourth, that Blair's kind of beautiful, not the kind of beauty that hits you in the face like Serena's but a different kind, a classic kind, and Dan's always been a sucker for the classics.
They go home after dinner because Serena's in six martinis and an indeterminate amount of shots. Nate takes her outside and sits next to her on the curb, talking to her softly, while Dan pays for dinner.
Blair watches them through the glass doors of the restaurant, buttoning up her coat, which is just a bit incongruous, a little faded at the edges, when paired with her silky dress. "Is she alright?" she wonders.
"Oh, she's fine," Dan promises her, signing the receipt. "That's just…Serena," he says. "She gets like that sometimes."
"Doesn't seem all that healthy."
"She's seventeen," Dan says wryly.
"So are you. So am I. So's Nate."
"And we all get a little drunk sometimes," Dan shrugs. "A little high sometimes."
Blair tilts her head toward Serena and Nate outside, genuinely worry on her face. "That doesn't seem like a little," she says softly.
"She's fine," Dan says firmly, starting to frown.
"Hey," Eric interrupts, popping his head in. "I hailed cabs, let's go home."
Dan nods, relieved to see him. "Yeah, let's go." He holds the door open for Blair, doesn't look at her as she walks past him.
Eric and Jonathon go back to Jonathon's house, so Dan ends up squished into the backseat of a cab with Jenny, Blair, Serena, and Nate. Jenny's liquor-sleepy, leaning against his shoulder, and Serena's very quiet all of a sudden, slumped against Nate slightly. When they get home, Nate gets out first and pulls her out gently after him, murmurs, "C'mon, baby…"
Dan leans out of the cab once Jenny's out, too. "Make sure Lily and Dad don't hear you," he warns them. "And lots of water. And - "
"Make sure she falls asleep on her side, dude, yeah - I've got it," Nate says, nodding at him and then scooping Serena up.
"I'll drop Blair off at home," Dan tells Jenny.
"You don't need to - "
"No, he should," Jenny says. "You shouldn't go by yourself." She smiles at Blair, sleepy-eyed. "I'm really glad you came!"
Blair smiles back at her, softly. "Thanks for inviting me, Jenny."
Jenny gives them both a little wave and then turns to go inside; Dan closes the door and lets Blair tell the driver her address.
They're both very quiet for several moments and then Dan says, tersely, "I don't need you judging my sister."
Blair's head snaps over toward him. "I wasn't judging - "
"Yes, you were."
"I wasn't. I was just - she's seventeen, it shouldn't be this normal thing where you all know what to do when she gets that drunk, it shouldn't be something that happens all the time."
Dan glowers at her. "That's not judging?"
Blair crosses her arms. "It's ridiculous that she gets to become a teenage alcoholic just because you're all spoiled rich kids."
"She's not an alcoholic," Dan says. "She drinks sometimes. We all do. It's not a big deal and it's actually none of your business."
"Just because your parents aren't ever around - "
"Oh, and yours are?" he interrupts pointedly, and knows a half-second later, when he sees hurt flash through her eyes, that it was going too far.
Blair's quiet, too quiet, for a long moment, and then she says sharply, "You don't know me. Just because we had one ten-minute conversation in a hallway and your sisters tried to enact the plot of Pretty Woman with me, that doesn't mean you know anything about me."
"So you can judge me, but I can't judge you?"
"I didn't judge you," she says in that same sharp tone. She blows out a breath. "Until now."
Dan feels chagrined but still defensive, and he says, hesitantly, "Blair - "
The taxi comes to a stop in front of the curb and Blair opens the door quickly, fumbling with the handle for a beat. She doesn't say a word to him, just slams the door behind her, hard.
Dan slumps down on the seat, defeated and angry, watching her walk away in a pair of Jenny's heels.
tbc.