What Boredom Can Lead To (4/?)
Title: What Boredom Can Lead To (4/?)
Pairing: Dan/BlairRating: PG (for this part at least)
Summary: Dan and Blair are left to their own devices for the duration of winter break. With all of their friends gone, it seems that the two frenemies will have to rely on each other for entertainment.
Spoilers: Up to 4x11
Word Count: 3,987
Note: Yikes! These chapters are getting longer and longer. So, this chapter is emotionally all over the place. I'm doing my best to keep them as in character as possible - if any chapter has any OOC, it's this one. But, I think it remains pretty true to both Dan and Blair. So...part four!
After Dan deposits Blair into his bed for the third time, he tries to go to sleep, really he does. He lays on the couch and tosses and turns because only one thing is on his mind and he can't seem to stop thinking about it: Blair. Blair who told him things tonight that he never imagined could come from her. She talked about her father and his boyfriend, about the absence of her mother, what her greatest ambitions were, who she would eat first in the event that she was forced to eat another human (Nelly Yuki, for the record), and to his delight, she was funny. He laughed and he laughed a lot.
So, when he finds that sleep is not happening despite it being on his agenda, he finds himself opening his laptop and writing. He writes more than he's ever written in one sitting. It's frantic and confused and honest and impassioned. And though he never explicitly says it, it's all about her. He can't tell how he feels about her from one minute to the next. One second it's adoration, the next it's annoyance.
Finally, he can't write anymore. He gets up from the table and quietly slips into his room to grab a book to read - something simple and straightforward. At this point and in this mindset, he can't process anything too complex.
"Dan?" He starts when he hears her meek voice. He's surprised to find her awake and using his first name.
"Sorry, just getting a book, go back to sleep," he whispers into the dark before turning to leave.
"Wait," she sits up a little and looks at him. He can't really see her in the dark, but he knows she's staring right at him. He can feel it. "Come here for a second."
Don't do it. Just tell her to go back to sleep and go read your book, Dan commands himself and yet his feet are moving toward the bed. And without a word, she scoots away from him and holds open the covers for him to crawl in. He can feel his heart beating quickly in his chest and he has no idea what the hell he's doing. All he's sure of is that climbing into his bed with Blair Waldorf at 3 in the morning is not the wisest decision he's made.
He feels the sleeve of a sweatshirt brush against him as she lowers the blankets onto him. "You're wearing my clothes again," he grins at her but hopes she can't see it. He's not sure she should know that her wearing his clothes pleases him so much.
"They smell like you," she murmurs and she shifts her body a few inches closer to him.
"Is that...is that a good thing?" The room is silent. So quiet, he can hear their breathing, both heavy and slow. He can't remember the last time he was this nervous around a female. After Serena, girls had gotten considerably less intimidating, but at this moment in time, he feels like he can't breathe and like he might burst apart at any moment.
"I don't know. It's just...just you," she moves close enough to him that he can feel her warm breath on his face. He can feel heat radiating from her entire body and for the first time, he has a thought of having sex with Blair Waldorf that isn't immediately followed by the image of a praying mantis eating its mate's head. This time, he thinks of having sex with Blair Waldorf and immediately follows that thought with the image of Blair Waldorf laying in his bed naked, Blair in his shower, Blair making food with him in the kitchen.
"Blair..." he breathes and he knows that all he wants to do right then and there is kiss her.
"Goodnight Humphrey," she mumbles and turns away from him without another word. Dan takes that as his cue to leave and does so, only falling asleep on the couch when his eyes can't stay open any longer.
+++
"Morning," Blair greets Dan, stretching her arms high above her head and yawning. "Did you sleep all right on the couch?"
"Yeah it was fine. Croissant?" He offers her a tray full of freshly baked pastries. Her eyes go big and round and she says 'mmm, please' before snatching two. "Blair, about last night..."
"Hm?" She says, but appears much more interested in the croissant in front of her. "What about last night? I had fun."
"So did I, but I'm talking about later?" He looks at her for a reaction but her face remains blank. "Later in my bed?"
She laughs and waves it away. "Oh that? I was half asleep. I could have been quoting lines from 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' for all I know."
"Well, you most definitely were not doing that," Dan responds, amazed that she could forget something like that when it's what he went to bed thinking about and what he woke up thinking about as well.
"Was I horribly embarrassing?" She asks, chomping on her croissant and spinning around on the stool.
"No, you were..." he shakes his head. What was the point? "Nevermind."
Blair shrugs and stands up, walking over to his refrigerator. "Do you have apple juice?"
"No, just orange. Not a big fan of apple juice - too sweet for me."
"Well," she shuts the door and turns to him, "I'm much sweeter than apple juice so I don't know how you manage yourself around me." For the life of him, Dan doesn't know how either. "I'd better get going. Dorota will worry about me if I'm not home at all today."
Five minutes later, she's waving to Dan and exiting the loft, not a trace of her left. He steps into his room to look for any evidence that she was ever even really there. Then he thinks to himself he should do some laundry but when he goes to wash the sweats that Blair wore last night, they're nowhere to be found. Vanished into thin air.
"Strange..." Dan clicks his tongue and looks around the room suspiciously, but starts the laundry nonetheless. Stranger things have happened - the entire week was evidence of that.
+++
Blair Waldorf is officially a thief. She shoves her hand into her purse and touches Dan's soft NYU sweatshirt, She has officially gone off the rails and committed a crime, all because she likes the way a guy smells.
She might have been sleepy, but Blair knows exactly what happened last night. She knows that it was a moment of weakness and that if Dan had tried to kiss her, she would have let him. She's sure that she's currently losing her mind. Playing the question game with him, sleeping in his bed, inviting her into his bed while she's in it, almost kissing him, having breakfast with him, and now stealing his personal property? She needs a shrink.
Or a mini shopping spree.
So she races home, cleans herself up, and hits the city for retail therapy. She buys shoes and hats and jackets and - without any ulterior motives, she swears, she just likes dolling herself up for herself - lingerie (a purple corset with matching panties and a garter to go with it.)
"Who's the lucky guy?" The clerk asks her as she rings Blair up.
"No one. Me. Just treating myself," Blair offers her a smile which the woman returns.
"Maybe someone else will get the chance to enjoy it," and with that, Blair snatches the bag with a quick 'thank you' and leaves the store. If she thinks about who might enjoy it, she'll inevitably think about someone she should not be thinking about sexually. Never mind the fact that he is who he is, he's also her best friend's ex/step brother. It's a whole mess of weird and confusing circumstances and Blair should not be going around blurring the lines anymore than they already are.
It's while Blair is casually walking down the sidewalk, bags in hand and a smile on her face, that the wind picks up a stray piece of paper, blowing it around until it lands at her feet. When she looks down, she sees a simple message in simple typeface which reads 'SEEKING EXTRAS FOR MOVIE ADAPTATION OF ON THE ROAD! PLEASE CONTACT 646-292-5723.' Blair picks it up and stares at it, unblinking but mouth open wide in surprise.
"Well, I'll be Damned. I like Humphrey." And to add to the shock of such a revelation, she realizes she's not bothered by it at all.
+++
"Here Humphrey," Blair thrusts his clothes at him as soon as he swings open the door, "I seem to have taken these by mistake last time I was here."
"By mistake?" Dan asks. He's getting more and more used to her dropping by unannounced and maybe (hopefully) staying the night.
"Yes. That's what I said, by mistake."
Dan steps aside and opens the door further. "Were you going to come in or are you still thinking about it? I don't have a maid but it is clean."
"I'm actually leaving," she attempts to keep her face as calm as possible, but on the inside her mind is reeling. She had no problem being around him when he was just Humphrey but now...now he's Dan Humphrey. Far less judgmental than anyone on the Upper East Side and yet she finds herself caring about what he thinks about her as a person - not just a socialite. She wants him to know that she's more than just Manolo Blahnik's and scheming.
"Leaving? So you came all the way to Brooklyn to give me my clothes which you took -"
"By mistake!" She reminds him quickly.
"By mistake and now you're leaving. Couldn't you have sent someone to do that for you?" He looks at her skeptically. She was acting stranger - stranger than usual.
"I...I have to go. Talk to you later. Have a nice night," she says to him, turning on her heel and striding away.
Dan stares after her, completely confused and disappointed. Shaking his head, he closes the door and spends the rest of the night trying to wrap his mind around the past week and a half he's had with Blair.
+++
"Miss Blair, you're not at Mister Dan Humphrey's!" Dorota exclaims, surprised to see Blair home so early.
"I was," Blair moans.
"Short trip," Dorota comments.
"It wasn't supposed to be. I was supposed to go over there and be casual and mildly interested and friendly. But I got there and I...I thought my heart was going to explode right out of my chest. Everyone here expects me to be Blair Waldorf - rich and fabulous and the most popular and in the know. I can't wear last season's anything - even though ew, why would I want to? - and I can hardly lift a finger without everyone gossiping about how I did it or who I did it with," Blair says, words tumbling out faster than she can fully process them.
"You are a powerful woman, Miss Blair," Dorota says solemnly.
"But not in his eyes! I'm just another rich girl. That's what everyone here wants me to be, but he wants me to be me. I don't know that I know how to do that, Dorota," Blair whispers the last part.
"The most important thing to remember about love is to always be true. Vanya always want me to be honest and open, so I tell him how I feeling," Dorota squeezes Blair's hand reassuringly.
"But how can it be that easy? With Chuck it was always push and pull. It was always a game. And then there's stupid Dan Humphrey being straightforward."
"Mister Dan Humphrey is not Mister Chuck."
Blair snorts, "That's for sure." She sighs heavily, fixating Dorota with a serious look, "So I should talk to him? Tell him how I'm feeling?"
"I think you know what you want to do, Miss Blair," Dorota responds wisely, giving her a secret smile that Blair can't quite decipher.
+++
"Blair, it's Dan...again," Dan rubs the bridge of his nose while he leaves a voicemail on Blair's cellphone. "Haven't seen or heard from you in three days. Guess I've gotten used to you hanging around..." he trails off - was that saying too much? "Anyway, give me a call or stop by or...yeah, just give me a call. Okay, bye," Dan hangs up and stares at the phone.
He's called her once every day since she came by and acted sort of crazy. Logically, his interest in her did not make an ounce of sense. They were polar opposites and practically born to hate one another. But they'd always understood one another. He knew her before they'd started spending time together over the last two weeks and he knows her even better now. He knows that her favorite color is cherry red and that her biggest pet peeve is when people match too much. On top of that, he knows that her parents' divorce was hard for her mostly because she felt like her father had been dishonest with her, like he'd broken her trust. And one thing he'd always been privy to was the fact that as much as she could tear someone down and act malicious, she could also love fiercely and that she would let herself be destroyed before she let anything bad happen to someone she cares about.
He's just about to send her a text message, just in case something is wrong with her voicemail and all of his messages aren't getting through and she has no idea that he even wants to talk to her, when there's a knock at the door. He rushes over and opens it, hoping to see Blair's face. But that isn't at all who greets him. Rather, it's another familiar face in the doorway.
"Dan!" Vanessa beams at him before throwing her arms around him in an embrace, "I've missed you! What are you doing in on a Saturday night?" She walks in comfortably, taking off her jacket and hanging it on the coat rack along with her purse.
"Uh...Vanessa," he finally musters a greeting, "what are you doing here?"
"Wow, don't get too excited to see me, Dan. You might scare me off," Vanessa responds in jest. "I came back for the weekend. As much as I love my parents and need a break from the city, I also love the city and need a break from my parents. So I was thinking...Souvlaki's?" She looks at him hopefully.
He's overcome with the urge to spill his guts to her and tell him about how in the last two weeks he and Blair Waldorf have become friends and they almost kissed and now all he wants to do is really kiss her. But then he remembers that this is Vanessa - best friend, ex-girlfriend, and current president of the 'I Hate Blair Waldorf' club. The only thing he would get from her if he were to confess his feelings is a brutal beating and an enraged lectures about the man evils of Blair.
"Food. Souvlaki's. Great," he claps his hands together and grabs her stuff and hands it to her before slipping on his own jacket. "After you," he motions toward the door and follows her out, but not before he glances at his phone to make sure that he hadn't somehow missed a phone call from her.
+++
"So then," Vanessa continues her story as they round the corner, arms linked and laughing, "he tries to guess my weight and severely overestimates. By so much, in fact, that I threw my glass of water right in face. I swear Dan, it was right out of -"
But Dan stops listening when he sees a familiar brunette sitting on the steps of Souvlaki's. "Blair," he breathes.
"Blair? Why are you talking about Blair right now?" Vanessa stares at Dan like he's crazy and Dan can't help but think that maybe he is; forgetting to breathe around Blair Waldorf and getting butterflies in his stomach at the very sight of her. Finally, they reach the steps at Souvlaki's and Dan gets her attention.
She sniffs quickly, touching a hand to her cheek and turns to him. "Dan, I -" she starts, like she has something to tell him. But as soon as she catches sight of Vanessa, her face turns hard and irritated. "And Vanessa Abrams. What brings you two here?"
Vanessa assumes a girl-with-attitude pose and glares at Blair. "Dan and I are just here to get some food, this is kind of our place."
"Your place?" She turns a hateful gaze on Dan and suddenly he's nervous.
"Well, it's not really our place, exactly," he says timidly. Who should he be more worried about offending at this moment? His best friend or the girl he's been thinking about for the past few weeks.
Vanessa laughs and smacks him on the arm, "Oh, okay, we've just been coming here practically every week since we first discovered it." She turns back to Blair, "And what are you doing here? You do realize this is scarily close to Brooklyn, right?"
"Well thank you, Abrams. Next time I'm in need of a GPS, I'll just give you a call instead! Anyway, I was just leaving," and with that she stands up and turns to go, but before she can get too far, she's thwarted by Dan Humphrey.
"Blair," he says, touching her shoulder and making her stop. "Are you all right? You seemed...you seemed upset," he bends down to look at her because she won't meet his eye.
"I'm fine, Humphrey. No need to concern yourself because it most definitely does not concern you," she snarls at him before turning and striding away, head held high. But she's glad that her back is to him because if he could see her, then he would most definitely see that she was not all right and that her eyes were brimming with tears.
"Dan?" Vanessa calls to him, bringing him back to reality and away from a world where Blair seeks consolation in him. "What was that all about? Blair Waldorf in Brooklyn? I thought I was dreaming for a second."
"You know Blair," he turns to look and see if he can still see her walking away, but her violet coat is nowhere to be seen. "Always full of surprises."
+++
"Blair!" Dan yells when he exits the elevator of the Waldorf residence. "Blair, it's Dan! I need to talk to you!"
Dan had given Vanessa some lame excuse about needing to go back to Manhattan to talk to his dad about something. The fact was, as he had sat across from Vanessa and listened to her stories about her latest film and her family and everything, he kept thinking to himself How could I have ever thought that Vanessa was the girl for me? There was no doubt that she knew him well and they had a lot in common, but Blair was different. She called him on his bullshit and wasn't afraid to act like a bitch but then flash him a sweet smile a moment later.
And it's not like this development was something completely out of the blue. They'd had their bonding moments in the past and they'd known each other for years - they hadn't exactly been friendly years, but they couldn't claim that they didn't know each other or have a history. Dan had simply never considered the fact that there was more to Blair than shoes and hair. And when he found out that there was, it took him by surprise and became something he wanted more of.
"Mister Dan Humphrey, what are you doing here?" Dorota asks, surprised to see him standing in the foyer.
"I need to talk to Blair. Is she here?" He tries peking around Dorota, as if Blair is hiding behind her.
"Miss Blair not here. She say something about too much Brooklyn and a Vanessa uh...Abitch," Dorota recalls, nodding at the end of the sentence.
"Well, do you know where she is?" He asks desperately as he starts realizing that to Blair, it probably looked like he and Vanessa were back together. And Vanessa referring to Souvlaki's as "their place" probably hadn't helped matters. It figures, as soon as he gets into her good graces, it all gets lost in translation and he manages to piss her off again.
"I not supposed to tell you - to tell anyone," she clarifies.
"Please, Dorota. There are some things I need to tell her, to explain to her. And if I know Blair, the more time she has to set her mind on something, the harder it is to change it. So that means that every second you're not telling me where she is, she's probably off deciding that being friends with me was a complete lapse in judgment," he rambles, feeling crazed.
She gives him a measured stare, debating if it will be worth it to tell him where she is. "You try the park, she like feeing the ducks," she gives him a curt nod and scampers away to do whatever it is Dorota does during the day.
+++
"You know," Dan says, approaching Blair who is all bundled up and angrily throwing bread into the empty pond, "I think that most of the ducks have migrated south by this time of the year."
She doesn't look up from her napkin full of carbohydrates. "Birds of a feather," she trails off, chucking another clump of bread into the freezing water. "Where's Vanessa? Moving all of her second-hand furniture back into your place? Settling in with the biography of Che Guevara?" Blair still won't look at him and he's almost glad because if she were, he'd probably terrified by her hateful gaze.
"She's actually visiting a few friends from NYU and then she's heading back to her parents tomorrow. So...no. None of those things you mentioned," he responds. They stand in silence for a few minutes before he speaks again. "You're mad at me."
"Right," she laughs, "the day I'm ever emotionally invested enough in Dan Humphrey that I bother to get angry with him. I'd expect to see birds here in December sooner than I'd expect to see that," as if to drive the point home, she chucks the rest of the bread and shoves her hands into her pockets.
"So, you're trying to tell me that you weren't initially upset back at Souvlaki's and that - for some reason - seeing me and Vanessa together didn't bother you in the least?" He's looking at her, willing her to look up and let him see her face.
"You're right, Dan," she finally looks at him but all he sees is the cold stare that he had endured throughout high school, "I was upset. I was upset because I was in stupid Brooklyn at a place that serves mediocre Greek food. And I really don't care what you and Vanessa do so long as you both stay out of my way."
He knows what's happening but he can't help but feel angry at her. It's so typical of her to allow herself to be vulnerable around someone and then as soon as she feels weak and exposed, she fights back with cruelty. "I thought we were...Blair, I thought we were -"
"You thought we were...what? Friends? Blair Waldorf and Dan Humphrey - friends. You know, Lonely Boy," she snarls at him, "if i had known you would get so clingy after hanging out a few times, I wouldn't have bothered."
"Fine," he waves his hands in front of him, like he's trying to clear away everything that had happened in the last two weeks, "if that's how you're going to act, then fine, I'm done. I thought we were past the classist stuff, the labels. I did think that we were friends, I thought I -" he has to look away before he tells her everything.
"You thought you what?" He swears that she asks the question not with malice but with hope.
"Nothing. I guess it doesn't matter anymore. See you around, Waldorf," he says, positively pissed off and crushed.
It isn't until Dan Humphrey is out of sight that Blair cries for the second time today, only this time, it's for a completely different reason.
Pairing: Dan/BlairRating: PG (for this part at least)
Summary: Dan and Blair are left to their own devices for the duration of winter break. With all of their friends gone, it seems that the two frenemies will have to rely on each other for entertainment.
Spoilers: Up to 4x11
Word Count: 3,987
Note: Yikes! These chapters are getting longer and longer. So, this chapter is emotionally all over the place. I'm doing my best to keep them as in character as possible - if any chapter has any OOC, it's this one. But, I think it remains pretty true to both Dan and Blair. So...part four!
After Dan deposits Blair into his bed for the third time, he tries to go to sleep, really he does. He lays on the couch and tosses and turns because only one thing is on his mind and he can't seem to stop thinking about it: Blair. Blair who told him things tonight that he never imagined could come from her. She talked about her father and his boyfriend, about the absence of her mother, what her greatest ambitions were, who she would eat first in the event that she was forced to eat another human (Nelly Yuki, for the record), and to his delight, she was funny. He laughed and he laughed a lot.
So, when he finds that sleep is not happening despite it being on his agenda, he finds himself opening his laptop and writing. He writes more than he's ever written in one sitting. It's frantic and confused and honest and impassioned. And though he never explicitly says it, it's all about her. He can't tell how he feels about her from one minute to the next. One second it's adoration, the next it's annoyance.
Finally, he can't write anymore. He gets up from the table and quietly slips into his room to grab a book to read - something simple and straightforward. At this point and in this mindset, he can't process anything too complex.
"Dan?" He starts when he hears her meek voice. He's surprised to find her awake and using his first name.
"Sorry, just getting a book, go back to sleep," he whispers into the dark before turning to leave.
"Wait," she sits up a little and looks at him. He can't really see her in the dark, but he knows she's staring right at him. He can feel it. "Come here for a second."
Don't do it. Just tell her to go back to sleep and go read your book, Dan commands himself and yet his feet are moving toward the bed. And without a word, she scoots away from him and holds open the covers for him to crawl in. He can feel his heart beating quickly in his chest and he has no idea what the hell he's doing. All he's sure of is that climbing into his bed with Blair Waldorf at 3 in the morning is not the wisest decision he's made.
He feels the sleeve of a sweatshirt brush against him as she lowers the blankets onto him. "You're wearing my clothes again," he grins at her but hopes she can't see it. He's not sure she should know that her wearing his clothes pleases him so much.
"They smell like you," she murmurs and she shifts her body a few inches closer to him.
"Is that...is that a good thing?" The room is silent. So quiet, he can hear their breathing, both heavy and slow. He can't remember the last time he was this nervous around a female. After Serena, girls had gotten considerably less intimidating, but at this moment in time, he feels like he can't breathe and like he might burst apart at any moment.
"I don't know. It's just...just you," she moves close enough to him that he can feel her warm breath on his face. He can feel heat radiating from her entire body and for the first time, he has a thought of having sex with Blair Waldorf that isn't immediately followed by the image of a praying mantis eating its mate's head. This time, he thinks of having sex with Blair Waldorf and immediately follows that thought with the image of Blair Waldorf laying in his bed naked, Blair in his shower, Blair making food with him in the kitchen.
"Blair..." he breathes and he knows that all he wants to do right then and there is kiss her.
"Goodnight Humphrey," she mumbles and turns away from him without another word. Dan takes that as his cue to leave and does so, only falling asleep on the couch when his eyes can't stay open any longer.
+++
"Morning," Blair greets Dan, stretching her arms high above her head and yawning. "Did you sleep all right on the couch?"
"Yeah it was fine. Croissant?" He offers her a tray full of freshly baked pastries. Her eyes go big and round and she says 'mmm, please' before snatching two. "Blair, about last night..."
"Hm?" She says, but appears much more interested in the croissant in front of her. "What about last night? I had fun."
"So did I, but I'm talking about later?" He looks at her for a reaction but her face remains blank. "Later in my bed?"
She laughs and waves it away. "Oh that? I was half asleep. I could have been quoting lines from 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' for all I know."
"Well, you most definitely were not doing that," Dan responds, amazed that she could forget something like that when it's what he went to bed thinking about and what he woke up thinking about as well.
"Was I horribly embarrassing?" She asks, chomping on her croissant and spinning around on the stool.
"No, you were..." he shakes his head. What was the point? "Nevermind."
Blair shrugs and stands up, walking over to his refrigerator. "Do you have apple juice?"
"No, just orange. Not a big fan of apple juice - too sweet for me."
"Well," she shuts the door and turns to him, "I'm much sweeter than apple juice so I don't know how you manage yourself around me." For the life of him, Dan doesn't know how either. "I'd better get going. Dorota will worry about me if I'm not home at all today."
Five minutes later, she's waving to Dan and exiting the loft, not a trace of her left. He steps into his room to look for any evidence that she was ever even really there. Then he thinks to himself he should do some laundry but when he goes to wash the sweats that Blair wore last night, they're nowhere to be found. Vanished into thin air.
"Strange..." Dan clicks his tongue and looks around the room suspiciously, but starts the laundry nonetheless. Stranger things have happened - the entire week was evidence of that.
+++
Blair Waldorf is officially a thief. She shoves her hand into her purse and touches Dan's soft NYU sweatshirt, She has officially gone off the rails and committed a crime, all because she likes the way a guy smells.
She might have been sleepy, but Blair knows exactly what happened last night. She knows that it was a moment of weakness and that if Dan had tried to kiss her, she would have let him. She's sure that she's currently losing her mind. Playing the question game with him, sleeping in his bed, inviting her into his bed while she's in it, almost kissing him, having breakfast with him, and now stealing his personal property? She needs a shrink.
Or a mini shopping spree.
So she races home, cleans herself up, and hits the city for retail therapy. She buys shoes and hats and jackets and - without any ulterior motives, she swears, she just likes dolling herself up for herself - lingerie (a purple corset with matching panties and a garter to go with it.)
"Who's the lucky guy?" The clerk asks her as she rings Blair up.
"No one. Me. Just treating myself," Blair offers her a smile which the woman returns.
"Maybe someone else will get the chance to enjoy it," and with that, Blair snatches the bag with a quick 'thank you' and leaves the store. If she thinks about who might enjoy it, she'll inevitably think about someone she should not be thinking about sexually. Never mind the fact that he is who he is, he's also her best friend's ex/step brother. It's a whole mess of weird and confusing circumstances and Blair should not be going around blurring the lines anymore than they already are.
It's while Blair is casually walking down the sidewalk, bags in hand and a smile on her face, that the wind picks up a stray piece of paper, blowing it around until it lands at her feet. When she looks down, she sees a simple message in simple typeface which reads 'SEEKING EXTRAS FOR MOVIE ADAPTATION OF ON THE ROAD! PLEASE CONTACT 646-292-5723.' Blair picks it up and stares at it, unblinking but mouth open wide in surprise.
"Well, I'll be Damned. I like Humphrey." And to add to the shock of such a revelation, she realizes she's not bothered by it at all.
+++
"Here Humphrey," Blair thrusts his clothes at him as soon as he swings open the door, "I seem to have taken these by mistake last time I was here."
"By mistake?" Dan asks. He's getting more and more used to her dropping by unannounced and maybe (hopefully) staying the night.
"Yes. That's what I said, by mistake."
Dan steps aside and opens the door further. "Were you going to come in or are you still thinking about it? I don't have a maid but it is clean."
"I'm actually leaving," she attempts to keep her face as calm as possible, but on the inside her mind is reeling. She had no problem being around him when he was just Humphrey but now...now he's Dan Humphrey. Far less judgmental than anyone on the Upper East Side and yet she finds herself caring about what he thinks about her as a person - not just a socialite. She wants him to know that she's more than just Manolo Blahnik's and scheming.
"Leaving? So you came all the way to Brooklyn to give me my clothes which you took -"
"By mistake!" She reminds him quickly.
"By mistake and now you're leaving. Couldn't you have sent someone to do that for you?" He looks at her skeptically. She was acting stranger - stranger than usual.
"I...I have to go. Talk to you later. Have a nice night," she says to him, turning on her heel and striding away.
Dan stares after her, completely confused and disappointed. Shaking his head, he closes the door and spends the rest of the night trying to wrap his mind around the past week and a half he's had with Blair.
+++
"Miss Blair, you're not at Mister Dan Humphrey's!" Dorota exclaims, surprised to see Blair home so early.
"I was," Blair moans.
"Short trip," Dorota comments.
"It wasn't supposed to be. I was supposed to go over there and be casual and mildly interested and friendly. But I got there and I...I thought my heart was going to explode right out of my chest. Everyone here expects me to be Blair Waldorf - rich and fabulous and the most popular and in the know. I can't wear last season's anything - even though ew, why would I want to? - and I can hardly lift a finger without everyone gossiping about how I did it or who I did it with," Blair says, words tumbling out faster than she can fully process them.
"You are a powerful woman, Miss Blair," Dorota says solemnly.
"But not in his eyes! I'm just another rich girl. That's what everyone here wants me to be, but he wants me to be me. I don't know that I know how to do that, Dorota," Blair whispers the last part.
"The most important thing to remember about love is to always be true. Vanya always want me to be honest and open, so I tell him how I feeling," Dorota squeezes Blair's hand reassuringly.
"But how can it be that easy? With Chuck it was always push and pull. It was always a game. And then there's stupid Dan Humphrey being straightforward."
"Mister Dan Humphrey is not Mister Chuck."
Blair snorts, "That's for sure." She sighs heavily, fixating Dorota with a serious look, "So I should talk to him? Tell him how I'm feeling?"
"I think you know what you want to do, Miss Blair," Dorota responds wisely, giving her a secret smile that Blair can't quite decipher.
+++
"Blair, it's Dan...again," Dan rubs the bridge of his nose while he leaves a voicemail on Blair's cellphone. "Haven't seen or heard from you in three days. Guess I've gotten used to you hanging around..." he trails off - was that saying too much? "Anyway, give me a call or stop by or...yeah, just give me a call. Okay, bye," Dan hangs up and stares at the phone.
He's called her once every day since she came by and acted sort of crazy. Logically, his interest in her did not make an ounce of sense. They were polar opposites and practically born to hate one another. But they'd always understood one another. He knew her before they'd started spending time together over the last two weeks and he knows her even better now. He knows that her favorite color is cherry red and that her biggest pet peeve is when people match too much. On top of that, he knows that her parents' divorce was hard for her mostly because she felt like her father had been dishonest with her, like he'd broken her trust. And one thing he'd always been privy to was the fact that as much as she could tear someone down and act malicious, she could also love fiercely and that she would let herself be destroyed before she let anything bad happen to someone she cares about.
He's just about to send her a text message, just in case something is wrong with her voicemail and all of his messages aren't getting through and she has no idea that he even wants to talk to her, when there's a knock at the door. He rushes over and opens it, hoping to see Blair's face. But that isn't at all who greets him. Rather, it's another familiar face in the doorway.
"Dan!" Vanessa beams at him before throwing her arms around him in an embrace, "I've missed you! What are you doing in on a Saturday night?" She walks in comfortably, taking off her jacket and hanging it on the coat rack along with her purse.
"Uh...Vanessa," he finally musters a greeting, "what are you doing here?"
"Wow, don't get too excited to see me, Dan. You might scare me off," Vanessa responds in jest. "I came back for the weekend. As much as I love my parents and need a break from the city, I also love the city and need a break from my parents. So I was thinking...Souvlaki's?" She looks at him hopefully.
He's overcome with the urge to spill his guts to her and tell him about how in the last two weeks he and Blair Waldorf have become friends and they almost kissed and now all he wants to do is really kiss her. But then he remembers that this is Vanessa - best friend, ex-girlfriend, and current president of the 'I Hate Blair Waldorf' club. The only thing he would get from her if he were to confess his feelings is a brutal beating and an enraged lectures about the man evils of Blair.
"Food. Souvlaki's. Great," he claps his hands together and grabs her stuff and hands it to her before slipping on his own jacket. "After you," he motions toward the door and follows her out, but not before he glances at his phone to make sure that he hadn't somehow missed a phone call from her.
+++
"So then," Vanessa continues her story as they round the corner, arms linked and laughing, "he tries to guess my weight and severely overestimates. By so much, in fact, that I threw my glass of water right in face. I swear Dan, it was right out of -"
But Dan stops listening when he sees a familiar brunette sitting on the steps of Souvlaki's. "Blair," he breathes.
"Blair? Why are you talking about Blair right now?" Vanessa stares at Dan like he's crazy and Dan can't help but think that maybe he is; forgetting to breathe around Blair Waldorf and getting butterflies in his stomach at the very sight of her. Finally, they reach the steps at Souvlaki's and Dan gets her attention.
She sniffs quickly, touching a hand to her cheek and turns to him. "Dan, I -" she starts, like she has something to tell him. But as soon as she catches sight of Vanessa, her face turns hard and irritated. "And Vanessa Abrams. What brings you two here?"
Vanessa assumes a girl-with-attitude pose and glares at Blair. "Dan and I are just here to get some food, this is kind of our place."
"Your place?" She turns a hateful gaze on Dan and suddenly he's nervous.
"Well, it's not really our place, exactly," he says timidly. Who should he be more worried about offending at this moment? His best friend or the girl he's been thinking about for the past few weeks.
Vanessa laughs and smacks him on the arm, "Oh, okay, we've just been coming here practically every week since we first discovered it." She turns back to Blair, "And what are you doing here? You do realize this is scarily close to Brooklyn, right?"
"Well thank you, Abrams. Next time I'm in need of a GPS, I'll just give you a call instead! Anyway, I was just leaving," and with that she stands up and turns to go, but before she can get too far, she's thwarted by Dan Humphrey.
"Blair," he says, touching her shoulder and making her stop. "Are you all right? You seemed...you seemed upset," he bends down to look at her because she won't meet his eye.
"I'm fine, Humphrey. No need to concern yourself because it most definitely does not concern you," she snarls at him before turning and striding away, head held high. But she's glad that her back is to him because if he could see her, then he would most definitely see that she was not all right and that her eyes were brimming with tears.
"Dan?" Vanessa calls to him, bringing him back to reality and away from a world where Blair seeks consolation in him. "What was that all about? Blair Waldorf in Brooklyn? I thought I was dreaming for a second."
"You know Blair," he turns to look and see if he can still see her walking away, but her violet coat is nowhere to be seen. "Always full of surprises."
+++
"Blair!" Dan yells when he exits the elevator of the Waldorf residence. "Blair, it's Dan! I need to talk to you!"
Dan had given Vanessa some lame excuse about needing to go back to Manhattan to talk to his dad about something. The fact was, as he had sat across from Vanessa and listened to her stories about her latest film and her family and everything, he kept thinking to himself How could I have ever thought that Vanessa was the girl for me? There was no doubt that she knew him well and they had a lot in common, but Blair was different. She called him on his bullshit and wasn't afraid to act like a bitch but then flash him a sweet smile a moment later.
And it's not like this development was something completely out of the blue. They'd had their bonding moments in the past and they'd known each other for years - they hadn't exactly been friendly years, but they couldn't claim that they didn't know each other or have a history. Dan had simply never considered the fact that there was more to Blair than shoes and hair. And when he found out that there was, it took him by surprise and became something he wanted more of.
"Mister Dan Humphrey, what are you doing here?" Dorota asks, surprised to see him standing in the foyer.
"I need to talk to Blair. Is she here?" He tries peking around Dorota, as if Blair is hiding behind her.
"Miss Blair not here. She say something about too much Brooklyn and a Vanessa uh...Abitch," Dorota recalls, nodding at the end of the sentence.
"Well, do you know where she is?" He asks desperately as he starts realizing that to Blair, it probably looked like he and Vanessa were back together. And Vanessa referring to Souvlaki's as "their place" probably hadn't helped matters. It figures, as soon as he gets into her good graces, it all gets lost in translation and he manages to piss her off again.
"I not supposed to tell you - to tell anyone," she clarifies.
"Please, Dorota. There are some things I need to tell her, to explain to her. And if I know Blair, the more time she has to set her mind on something, the harder it is to change it. So that means that every second you're not telling me where she is, she's probably off deciding that being friends with me was a complete lapse in judgment," he rambles, feeling crazed.
She gives him a measured stare, debating if it will be worth it to tell him where she is. "You try the park, she like feeing the ducks," she gives him a curt nod and scampers away to do whatever it is Dorota does during the day.
+++
"You know," Dan says, approaching Blair who is all bundled up and angrily throwing bread into the empty pond, "I think that most of the ducks have migrated south by this time of the year."
She doesn't look up from her napkin full of carbohydrates. "Birds of a feather," she trails off, chucking another clump of bread into the freezing water. "Where's Vanessa? Moving all of her second-hand furniture back into your place? Settling in with the biography of Che Guevara?" Blair still won't look at him and he's almost glad because if she were, he'd probably terrified by her hateful gaze.
"She's actually visiting a few friends from NYU and then she's heading back to her parents tomorrow. So...no. None of those things you mentioned," he responds. They stand in silence for a few minutes before he speaks again. "You're mad at me."
"Right," she laughs, "the day I'm ever emotionally invested enough in Dan Humphrey that I bother to get angry with him. I'd expect to see birds here in December sooner than I'd expect to see that," as if to drive the point home, she chucks the rest of the bread and shoves her hands into her pockets.
"So, you're trying to tell me that you weren't initially upset back at Souvlaki's and that - for some reason - seeing me and Vanessa together didn't bother you in the least?" He's looking at her, willing her to look up and let him see her face.
"You're right, Dan," she finally looks at him but all he sees is the cold stare that he had endured throughout high school, "I was upset. I was upset because I was in stupid Brooklyn at a place that serves mediocre Greek food. And I really don't care what you and Vanessa do so long as you both stay out of my way."
He knows what's happening but he can't help but feel angry at her. It's so typical of her to allow herself to be vulnerable around someone and then as soon as she feels weak and exposed, she fights back with cruelty. "I thought we were...Blair, I thought we were -"
"You thought we were...what? Friends? Blair Waldorf and Dan Humphrey - friends. You know, Lonely Boy," she snarls at him, "if i had known you would get so clingy after hanging out a few times, I wouldn't have bothered."
"Fine," he waves his hands in front of him, like he's trying to clear away everything that had happened in the last two weeks, "if that's how you're going to act, then fine, I'm done. I thought we were past the classist stuff, the labels. I did think that we were friends, I thought I -" he has to look away before he tells her everything.
"You thought you what?" He swears that she asks the question not with malice but with hope.
"Nothing. I guess it doesn't matter anymore. See you around, Waldorf," he says, positively pissed off and crushed.
It isn't until Dan Humphrey is out of sight that Blair cries for the second time today, only this time, it's for a completely different reason.