yup (and now i'm pacing) [blair/jenny; unrequited blair/serena]
title: Yup (and Now I'm Pacing)
rating: PG13
fandom/pairing: Gossip Girl. Blair/Jenny; unrequited Blair/Serena and also friendship; faint Serena/Dan, Jenny/Nate, and allusions to Dan/Nate bromance.
spoilers/warnings: Er, not really? Defies most canon because lame. So, AU with an ambiguous time frame; slight language; uncertain Jenny!voice; underage drinking as per GG; almost no Chuck; also this is a series of thirty kinda-drabbles in one giant thing.
summary: Jenny just wants to dethrone Blair, at first. But then Blair has feelings, and that makes everything a lot more complicated.
words: 114 (The Danaides) + 220 (Icarus) + 250 (Nemesis) + 250 (Prometheus) + 209 (Morpheus) + 220 (Achilles) + 226 (Antigone) + 230 (Pandora) + 250 (Nyx) + 250 (Hecate) + 233 (Mnemosyne) + 203 (Hestia) + 177 (Echo) + 234 (Persephone) + 249 (Dionysus) + 248 (Artemis) + 243 (Hera) + 249 (Eurydice) + 239 (Medusa) + 194 (Hermes) + 222 (Chronos) + 211 (Athena) + 174 (Eros) + 182 (Ares) + 179 (Zeus) + 153 (Hades) + 248 (Cassandra) + 204 (Apollo) + 247 (Penelope) + 221 (Aphrodite) = 6529
disclaimer: I do not own Gossip Girl, bless, or Karmin's "Brokenhearted".
a/n: Written for my femslash100Greek Mythology claim for Gossip Girl, which ended up being Just One Thing. Whoops. I'm not totally sure if this counts as a fill for le claim, but I like it all the same so dadadada, which sounds much more triumphant out loud.
Jenny smiles at her, every morning. It’s not like the way the other girls do.
They smile like they’re terrified of Blair; like they think that if they don’t smile, she’ll take it as a sign of their dissent and have their reputations taken care of, Sopranos-style.
Jenny doesn’t. Jenny smiles because she likes Blair; smiles like she wants to be Blair’s friend, and smiles like maybe she and Blair could be friends, someday.
(She knows it won’t ever make a difference. She knows that she and Blair Waldorf come from two very, very different worlds. But it doesn’t stop her from trying to bring them a little closer, in whatever way she can.)
[The Danaides]
Except there comes a time - because there’s always a time, always a situation that has to come and change things, for better or worse or just for the sake of itself - when Jenny doesn’t smile at Blair like that, anymore. When she smiles at Blair, it’s like nothing she knows Blair Waldorf has ever had directed at her before, from anyone.
(Well, maybe she’d seen Serena looking at her with it, once or twice. But it never counted with Serena, because she and Blair had that kind of friendship that was impenetrable, and otherwise indescribable.)
Jenny smiles at Blair, and it’s not just a smile. It’s a smirk, derisive and heartless, because Jenny Humphrey finds herself at the top of the social pyramid, and Blair Waldorf is the one that she savors looking down on the most.
And at first, Blair doesn’t get it. She gets it, but she doesn’t really get it; she doesn’t understand that Jenny wins. She just looks shocked at little J’s audacity, and then storms off to complain to Serena.
But eventually, she catches on. Because she’s Blair Waldorf; she’s clever, in an awful, devious way.
She stops looking shocked when Jenny simpers at her, every morning.
Instead, she just glares, and Jenny knows that she’s plotting some kind of revenge.
(It’s sort of exciting.)
[Icarus]
It’s funny, how easily Jenny gets used to being able to wave a hand and have the girls around her dissipate, heads bowed in respect, because she’s the Queen of Constance and that means absolutely everything.
Blair doesn’t think it’s so funny, and Jenny sneers at her disgusted expression. “You might want to be more careful - wouldn’t want your face to freeze that way, would you?”
(Jenny wouldn’t mind if it did. It’s a ridiculous expression, Blair’s brow furrowed and her nose wrinkled in distaste. But it’s cute, too.
She’s in a position to blaspheme herself by thinking that, now, so there’s no reason for her to blush. She does anyway, and shakes her head to disregard the thoughts.)
“Oh, little J,” Blair coos patronizingly. Jenny stiffens in her seat; glances around self-consciously at the other tables out of habit, because the nickname used to be so embarrassing when Blair had the power to make it so.
“Do you really think that you’re going to win this?” Blair’s eyebrow is arched; Jenny mimics it and means to mock, but Blair just laughs a quiet little laugh like Jenny’s adorable, and maybe a bit endearing.
Leaning in, gaze firm but not cold, Blair lowers her voice and promises, “Because you won’t - believe me, you won’t.”
Jenny supposes it’s a threat, but it doesn’t sound particularly like something she’d be otherwise inclined to avoid.
She swallows hard, and pulls out her phone as an unspoken dismissal.
Blair chuckles again as she leaves.
[Nemesis]
It turns out, Blair was right. Maybe it’s because Blair Waldorf is always right - because she’s an evil mastermind that can predict the future, and that’s how she gets her power. It’s just as likely that the universe just bends and twists itself into whatever shape she wants it to be, too, though, and Jenny can’t make a certain decision on the matter.
When she falls, she falls hard, and fast. Within three days’ time, she’s even lower in the hierarchy than she was before. And her chances of getting to the top are slimmer, too.
Blair acknowledges her, one afternoon, with a condescending smile and a falsely-friendly, “Well hi there, Jenny - how are you?”
In a word, it’s humiliating. Jenny can’t place why. She thinks it’s because she’s so ashamed to have lost, but she’s not sure, anymore, that that’s what it ever was, really.
Because it’s not just a one-afternoon thing. Blair does it every day, and always the same - a superior grin; a feigned show of amicability; a lofty laugh as she stalks away, minions trailing mindlessly behind her. And it just gets worse and worse, every time that she laughs; Jenny feels so mortified, as though she’s lost more than just her social standing and most of her morality.
It’s like Blair saw through Jenny, saw everything that she is and was and wanted to be, beyond everything that the other girls could perceive, and like she does the worst damage by never sharing Jenny’s secrets.
[Prometheus]
“What do you want, Blair?” Jenny asks, finally. Nothing really prompts it, in particular - it just feels to her like everything’s finally reached a tipping point (she used to think that the tipping point was when she outwardly compromised Blair’s position; that’s a laughable idea, now), and she doesn’t want to take it anymore.
She asks it with a sigh, tired and weary of high school drama.
Blair turns to Jenny, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Excuse me?” she asks, hands folded and ankles crossed; the picture of a prim little princess.
“Why do you keep doing this,” Jenny gestures vaguely with a hand, “To me? You won, I lost - can’t we please just call it the end and stop with -” she hesitates, suddenly unsure herself of what she’s trying to say. “This,” she repeats lamely, gaze faltering and falling to rest on curvy legs donning bright red tights.
From the corner of her eye, Jenny sees when Blair looks away, turning towards the window of the headmistress’s office again with what’s probably an exceptionally icy stare.
By the time that Blair actually deigns to reply, Jenny’s already given up hope that she would.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mutters, in a very unrefined way.
Jenny sighs.
[Morpheus]
It was never any secret that Blair and Serena were close, in a kind of way that was too close for just friendship. No one ever said anything about it, out of fear, but they all knew.
They all thought they did, at least. Jenny was one of them, because she figured it was just something between the two of them; something that they did for fun, or notoriety.
But Blair Waldorf doesn’t cry over her reputation. She laments damage done to it, for a brief period of time, and then comes back with a vengeful plan to reinstate herself as the number one. She doesn’t hide herself away, face blotched red and weepy. She doesn’t ask anyone’s opinion - and definitely not Jenny’s - about Serena; doesn’t ask anyone if he or she already knows that Serena isn’t going to choose Blair.
Not when it’s just for fun, she doesn’t.
“You love her,” Jenny says, surprised at herself for not having realized it sooner. Blair doesn’t say it, but she nods, staring at the mirror on the opposite bathroom wall.
Jenny wraps her arms around Blair’s shoulders, because Blair and Jenny don’t hate each other enough to ever leave the other sad, and alone, and rejected in the way that hurts the most.
She keeps them there because Blair lets her.
[Achilles]
“I still don’t like you,” Blair promises, and Jenny nods solemnly because she knows. “And I’m not going to help you at Constance, if that’s what you were -”
“I know,” Jenny interrupts. Blair watches her with assessing eyes, and Jenny flushes, repeating quieter, “I know.”
For a long moment, Blair keeps watching Jenny, before she hmms and settles more comfortably into her plush chaise. “But I don’t like owing debts to people, and your startling show of decency puts me in that position,” she notes, contemplatively. “So, ask for a favor, and maybe I will consider it. As long as it’s nothing too completely odious, naturally.”
A hundred different things pop into Jenny’s mind - she wants to be treated like a person and she wants invitations to parties and she wants to work with Eleanor Waldorf and she wants expensive jewelry and more than anything she wants to be all the best parts of Serena and Blair wrapped up into one uniquely-dressed personage - and she asks for none of them.
“If you’ve got some big plan for me, would you get it over with soon?”
Blair looks up from the seemingly-fascinating tassels on the throw blanket draped over the lounger, and smiles.
“Interesting. You really are something else, aren’t you, little J?”
Jenny can’t be too sure, but she doesn’t think that that’s an insult.
[Antigone]
On Monday morning, Blair is waiting to greet (or ambush) Jenny on the steps. The minions aren’t far behind, but they look confused, like they’re not sure what the plan is. Jenny doesn’t think they’re smart enough to fake that kind of bewilderment, and only sighs a little when she asks, “Is this it, then?”
“Is this what, little J?” Blair says, feigning innocence. “I’ve just come to the conclusion - after much deliberation and consultation on the matter - that your exile has gone on long enough.
“Are you ready to return to service? I am, as you must be aware, in the market for a new blond in my court.”
(Jenny admires the way that Blair’s expression only falters a little at vague mention of Serena. She thinks it’s a little stupid, that Blair won’t even be Serena’s friend now, but she also thinks that it’s not entirely unreasonable, and wonders how much it hurts Blair.)
She nods before she lets herself think of the many (many) cons to the situation.
“I think some kind of deal could be arranged,” Jenny says carefully.
Blair grins, like the unholy offspring of a clever fox and a brutal wolf, and then extends a hand down to Jenny.
There’s no hesitation when Jenny takes it, and follows Blair - only half a step behind - to the pack of sheep-minded girls, watching in puzzled awe.
[Pandora]
Being Blair’s blond turns out to be a lot more fun than Jenny anticipated. Blair doesn’t treat her like she always treated Serena, and that’s to be expected, but she doesn’t treat her like she treats the minions, either.
Jenny’s not an equal, in Blair’s eyes, but she’s about as close as any other mortal can be.
With that territory, comes the rare opportunity to observe Blair Waldorf in her natural habitat. Not the way that everyone images her to be - spoiled, lounging in tiny negligees and sipping classic martinis (which she does do, admittedly) - but in an almost natural kind of way.
Sometimes, Blair stays home on Saturday nights and watches movies, curled under a warm blanket and with a bowl of popcorn (no salt; no butter; no taste) in her lap.
(Jenny sits with her; watches Blair Waldorf smile and laugh and cry and sigh as she watches Audrey.)
Sometimes, Blair has Thursday night dinners (when her mother works late) in the kitchen, sitting at the island and picking through her salad with very little grace.
(Jenny joins her; stifles laughs when Blair tries and fails to skewer cherry tomatoes, and dodges croutons being hurled at her head in borderline playful retaliation.)
Sometimes, Blair stares at the beautiful things in her room and confesses that she misses Serena (a lot).
(Jenny listens to her; pretends she doesn’t get a pang of hurt in her chest every time Blair mentions Serena and hides how much she likes being there.)
[Nyx]
It’s during one of those times when Jenny thinks that Blair might be a real person, that Blair actually asks Jenny’s thoughts and expects a real answer.
“Humphrey -” she stops; amends, “Your brother,” with a grimace that Jenny empathizes a little with. “said that Serena misses me.”
Jenny pauses, fingers motionless in the twisted strands of an unfinished plait. She picks up quickly, clumsily. “So that’s…good, right?”
Humming, Blair squirms on the sofa, and wiggles her fingers, admiring - or already deciding she hates - the shiny eggplant color on her nails. “Yes,” she admits, and Jenny loses a segment; awkwardly shuffles two together and keeps going.
“Serena is my best friend; she always has been. It would be silly to throw all that away. Wouldn’t it?”
Jenny feels Blair’s eyes on her, legitimately waiting instead of just observing her reaction to a rhetorical question.
“Well - yeah,” she agrees, motions robotic and gaze blurry as she stares not-at-Blair.
With a barely ladylike yawn, Blair stretches her legs out from under her, and over Jenny’s lap. Her head tilts back against the arm of the sofa, and her eyes flutter shut as she breathes softly through her mouth.
“Do you think I can do it?” Blair asks, sounding uncertain for the first time Jenny has ever known her.
There’s no need to pause. “Of course,” Jenny answers, blinking and refocusing her eyes on still-nothing. “You’re Blair Waldorf,” she reminds, and Jenny doesn’t need to add that that means she can do anything.
[Hecate]
To say that Jenny regrets her advice would be correct, but it would also be mean, so when Dan asks her if she misses her new best friend - he’s teasing, until she blushes and mutters a embarrassed shut up that says more than she could ever have wanted it to - she doesn’t say no. She tells him that Blair and Serena are like that; tells him that Blair would have forgiven Serena (Dan interjects, “What was that fight even about?”, and Jenny avoids the question) with or without Jenny’s input.
But she does miss Blair, even if she doesn’t say it. She even prepares herself to miss Blair, after their conversation together, because she knows that with Serena back, Blair won’t need Jenny anymore.
And she’s right. Blair don’t wait for Jenny in the morning; she just breezes past, in a mist of classy, expensive perfumes intermingling together, because of course Serena and Blair are so in-sync that their perfumes go together.
Later, Penelope snorts, “It was only a matter of time, J,” and Jenny rolls her eyes at her.
She hates that Penelope has a point, and ignores the feelings of jealousy, and betrayal, and abandonment, and hurt that bubble up inside and threaten to swallow her whole.
She can’t ignore that she really misses Blair Waldorf a lot, and can’t ignore that she doesn’t know what to do with herself, anymore.
[Mnemosyne]
If Serena knows that Blair loves her - if she knows that she holds a special place in Blair Waldorf’s heart that no one else can take from her; if she knows just how much she actually means - she does a very good job of hiding it.
Serena doesn’t act like she’s better than anyone else, because Blair Waldorf loves her. She doesn’t act like it makes her any different, she doesn’t act like it validates her personality. She just goes with it; considers it another part of her life (a small part), and returns those affections - in a more platonic way - to Blair in kind, not out of social convention, but because she really likes Blair, just for herself, too.
It’s easy to envy the easy way that Serena lives with it; the way she just glides through life, a smile on her face and an arm linked with hers. Jenny likes Serena; doesn’t want to be that girl who gets consumed with stupid jealousy and then lashes out at good people for no reason, but it’s hard to do when Serena is so Serena, and Jenny is just a Humphrey, and Blair only has eyes for one real blond in her life.
[Hestia]
But it’s one of those things that Jenny gets used to. It’s strange, having to adapt to seeing Blair with Serena, since it was something that used to be so common, and only went out of style for a short period of time - but Jenny manages it.
She doesn’t smile at Blair in the mornings, anymore. She doesn’t look at Blair, in the mornings, anymore, and Blair doesn’t look at her, either.
Jenny’s not sure why, but there’s something very awkward about it, and she thinks it’s probably best to just avoid the subject until things are better.
Nate Archibald, Jenny discovers, is not a bad guy. He’s actually a really nice guy, as nice as everyone says. And he manages to like Dan and Chuck Bass at the same time, too, so obviously there’s something wrong with him - but in a good way.
Jenny likes him. She wouldn’t say she like likes him, because she’s not six years old anymore, but - he’s nice. A really nice guy.
(And he doesn’t like to talk about Blair, either.)
[Echo]
Jenny should know better, though, than to think that a girl can be friends with a guy without there being something more to it. Not at Constance, and not while Gossip Girl’s around.
She should know better, anyway, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t even consider it, really, until Serena approaches her on a dreary Tuesday with her arms crossed and a disappointed look on her face.
“You and Nate, Jenny?” she asks, as if the disbelief stems from Jenny, rather than Nate himself.
Blinking, Jenny repeats, “Me and Nate, Serena?” blankly, and it hits her a moment too late. She ohs solemnly, and Serena just nods slowly, gaze pointed.
“No, no, no,” Jenny assures hastily, waving her hands. “I don’t - it’s totally not anything like that. He’s just, he’s a friend, you know?”
It’s a bad question, and Jenny winces. “Really, it’s nothing. I kinda - like somebody else.”
She meant for it to be a lie, a cover that she shouldn’t have needed but that couldn’t hurt, either.
Quirking a brow, Serena’s mood lightens instantly and she prompts, “Oh? And who might that be?”
Jenny’s suddenly glad she’s never had an older sister. “Just -”
She means to say nobody, to brush it off and get Serena off her back, just for a little while.
But she doesn’t say it. She’s having a hard time lying, these days. Maybe it’s just a Serena thing.
[Persephone]
“I’m not old enough to drink,” Jenny protests. It’s not like that’s ever mattered before, but she’s not keen on the idea of Serena getting her drunk and letting her tongue run loose - Jenny knows way too much for that to be a good idea.
Still, Serena orders an appletini for her, anyway, and Jenny doesn’t argue anymore when she takes it.
It can’t be that bad an idea.
Except, three drinks later, and it is. Jenny just doesn’t quite realize it, as she nestles against Serena’s clavicle and notices that she smells like mangoes.
“I really like her a lot,” Jenny says, and she laughs when she does because it’s funny, that she’s telling the girl that Blair has a crush on about her crush on Blair. “She’s - she’s so pretty, and she’s such a bitch, too,” (she grimaces; her mouth tastes funny) “but - not always, y’know? Like, she’s a person.”
Serena laughs, sounds like a bell or a fairy or that fairy who sounded like a bell, and pets Jenny’s hair. “I know, J, B’s really nice when you get to know her. It’s nice that you like her - but now you’ve gotta tell her, you know that, right?”
Jenny shakes her head. Blair’s mouth probably tastes like vanilla, or cinnamon. Jenny isn’t quite sure what cinnamon tastes like.
“No - no, because she’s not nice - and I mean, like, I’m not either, but -”
There’s a but, in there somewhere. Jenny just doesn’t remember what it is.
[Dionysus]
The next time Jenny sees Serena, she’s sober. It’s too bad, because Serena’s with Blair.
Jenny tries to mind her own business, tries to make herself as inconspicuous as she possibly can (the hot pink hem of her dress might be a give-away) when they approach, but it doesn’t work.
Of course it doesn’t.
Formally, Blair perches herself on the stone bench across from Jenny. Her legs are crossed and her arms are folded under her as she leans across the table, and smiles at Jenny like she knows more secrets than usual.
Serena takes a seat between the two. She catches Jenny’s eye, and nods surreptitiously, like she’s doing Jenny a favor - and Jenny supposes that Serena might honestly believe that.
“So, little J,” Blair greets, all smiles and double-edged everything. “Serena tells me that you had something to tell me - did you finally decide what that favor was, you wanted?”
(A part of Jenny’s mind tries to think that it sounds like an excuse, but she shoves it away and keeps it quiet because it’s not really helping.)
Jenny hesitates; glances at Serena and sees a broad grin; tries not to roll her eyes and then fumbles, “Uh, yeah. I, um - I want to sit on the steps. With you,” Blair raises an eyebrow and Jenny adds, “Both.” Serena facepalms very obviously, but Blair doesn’t ask about it, just keeps watching Jenny. “For a month,” Jenny finishes, a little more firmly.
Serena doesn’t look entirely disappointed.
[Artemis]
As it happens, Serena proceeds to be suspiciously absent.
Jenny is pretty sure that that invalidates the deal, but she doesn’t argue when Blair smiles at her, wide and welcoming like the crocodile to the fishes, and daintily pats the stone next to her.
“Serena has gone on another of her mysterious trips,” Blair says in explanation, and Jenny gets the sense that Blair is hurting, so she doesn’t press the matter.
Blair makes conversation immediately, avoiding anything really significant.
“So, I hear you and Nate are getting to be very cozy,” she says conversationally (it’s a dare, Jenny guesses).
Slowly, spoon dragging through creamy pink yogurt, Jenny replies, “Not really,” and keeps a careful eye on Blair’s expression. “He and Dan have been hanging out a lot lately, and I’ve just kinda - been there.”
Unconvinced but munificent, Blair hms and leaves it at that.
Until Jenny stands to leave, anyway.
Blair pulls her back down by the wrist, eyes narrowed.
“You know, of course, little J, that Nate is offlimits? Especially to you?”
Blair’s tone reminds Jenny of why they fought; of why Jenny wanted so badly to beat Blair, no matter what the cost. It’s a cruel tone, unkind and unfriendly.
And whether it’s a mistake or not, Jenny takes the bait.
“Of course, Blair,” she repeats, voice lilting. “I know that jealousy’s not a good look on you.”
Jenny hears Blair’s shocked intake of breath when her back is turned.
[Hera]
Eventually, Jenny does get involved with Nate. It’s not just to spite Blair, even though there’s a lot of that involved.
It’s because Nate is nice, and sweet, and Dan likes him (so in theory, Dan can’t hate him), and because Jenny can’t think of a reason not to. She’s angry, and she’s impatient, and she gets more and more frustrated with Blair every time that the name Serena spills from her lips (she’s angry at Serena, too; angry at her for putting Jenny in this situation; angry at her for trying to help Jenny like charity, without ever realizing that she’s the reason Jenny would need help to begin with) - but none of those are reasons to say no.
She has sex with Nate, and he’s nice, and sweet, and gentle about it. Jenny’s pretty sure she doesn’t orgasm, even though she does a lot of screaming and moaning for his benefit.
In the morning, he wraps an arm around her waist and kisses the base of her neck.
She says, “I should go,” and ends up in Blair’s room.
Blair strokes Jenny’s hair and murmurs uncharacteristic things and doesn’t ask questions, when Jenny cries.
Jenny thinks that Blair must know who it was, and can’t figure why Blair bothers with a little Jenny Humphrey.
(And then Blair notes, “After all, my first time was with Chuck, and the world didn’t end,” like that’s even a little bit helpful, even though it’s not and she probably knows that.)
[Eurydice]
They talk about it, eventually, because they have to.
Blair doesn’t react much, just stares at Jenny patiently until the whole gruesome tale is out.
“I told you he was offlimits,” she reminds, and Jenny could scream, because after everything - and there’s an everything there; she knows it - she can’t believe that that’s the only thing Blair is going to have a problem with.
So she does scream. She screams, and then she cries, and then she screams some more, and then she whispers because she’s run out of other options.
She waits for the cowardice. Waits for Blair to laugh and tell her that there’s nothing there, and that honestly, little J, where do you come up with this stuff?
She’s not prepared for Blair to wipe the runny mascara from under her eyes, and she starts, squirming her chin out of Blair’s grip.
Blair takes it again, holding tighter this time, and murmurs, “J, J - Jenny, relax, it’s not like I’m going to slit your throat.”
“I get it - Nate’s cute; I completely understand,” Blair says, and she must be lying because Blair Waldorf isn’t stupid.
“I will be gracious and not hold this against you,” she promises, “But only because I think we might have become friends, little J.”
Jenny swats Blair’s hands away, and leaves without another word.
She clutches the black-streaked Kleenex in her hand until she gets home and realizes she has it.
[Medusa]
Things don’t fall apart when Serena comes back. Things fell apart before that, so Serena turning up to be Blair’s faithful rock doesn’t really make any difference.
Jenny has lunch with them on the steps, because it bothers Blair almost as much as it bothers her, and Jenny is bitter enough to think that that’s fair.
Serena picks up on the mood shift instantly, and doesn’t mince words when demanding an explanation - “Now what?” she asks, simply, glaring at either of them in turn.
Blair replies first, hmphing and complaining, “I have no idea - I should be the one upset with Jenny, not the other way around.”
Rolling her eyes, Jenny declares, “Bullshit,” and focuses on the clumps of granola in her salad when Blair takes that as proof of her point in the court of Serena.
When Serena gets tired of it (she lasts a while; Jenny’s surprised, but she guesses petulantly that that’s an acquired skill), she grabs either of them by the arm - none too gently, and Jenny embarrasses herself by noticing how her own and Blair’s protests almost sound a little idyllically musical together - and drags them into the school.
[Hermes]
They bang on the door of the supply closet that Serena unceremoniously shoves them both into, but Constance apparently does a pretty nice job of soundproofing their supply closets. Jenny isn’t sure why that is, and she really, really doesn’t want to know.
Fix things!! Serena texts to them, the beep of a new message interrupting the flurry of Blair’s thumbs over her keypad.
Blair turns on Jenny as a reflex, and says, “Great - now look what you’ve done,” like it’s Jenny’s fault. (Like Jenny’s put Blair in sucky situations like this before, too. Which, is also untrue.)
Jenny doesn’t like being locked in a closet (that might be ironic; she’ll have to ask Serena later if it was intentional or not, and read the way that her expression reveals understanding and realization to figure out if Serena is serious when she says Yeah, totally, that was definitely the idea) any more than Blair apparently does, but at the moment, she dislikes Blair even more than that.
She leans against a wall not housing a shelf of paint and paper products, and slides down until she feels cold tile underneath her. “I’ve got time,” Jenny states, and Blair takes on that expression again, like Jenny’s being audacious and insubordinate and all that other rebellious shit.
This time, Jenny cares a lot less.
[Chronos]
“You’re my fault, aren’t you?” Blair says after a while. She’s mostly calmed down; she’s stopped stomping her feet and has given up making empty promises to God and she’s not even whimpering any more at the fact that the battery in her phone is dead. She’s about as mellow as Jenny thinks Blair Waldorf can be, in the situation.
Jenny peers at Blair, and puts down the sharpie she’d been drawing on her palm with. “What does that even mean?” she asks, tired of people in the Upper-East Side who say things that don’t make sense just so that they can keep talking.
Gesturing ambiguously with a hand, Blair elaborates, “You,” unhelpfully, and knocks the toes of her shoes together. “You can really be a remarkable bitch, when you want to be - is that my fault?”
When Jenny thinks about it, it’s not, because she’s just her, independent of Blair’s existence whether that’s actually possible or not. When Jenny thinks about it more, it probably is, because all these years, all Jenny’s really wanted was to be like the popular girls, to fit in with the popular girls, to be liked by the popular girls, with Blair above all the others.
“No,” she lies, but Blair probably hears yes anyway.
[Athena]
It’s almost a game. They take turns, asking questions with meanings that dance around what each of them really wants to know, and answering them with lies that wouldn’t fool anyone but that make them feel a little more secure anyway.
Jenny asks, “Do you still love Serena?” but she says, “You and Serena seem pretty…okay.”
Blair confesses, “I’m moving past it,” but Jenny hears, “Of course - why shouldn’t we be ‘okay’?”
It’s easy, because there are no consequences because none of it technically means what it should. And Jenny doesn’t doubt that Blair likes that just fine, but it bothers Jenny, nags at her and makes her feel like some kind of coward.
“You deserve someone to make you happy,” Jenny says aloud, and Blair turns to her, startled, like she’s not sure whether Jenny actually said that, or whether Blair’s interpretation of it just had vivid audio to go along.
Quietly, Blair says, “I’m not sure that I do,” and Jenny understands full-well Blair’s bewilderment, because she’s not sure what she heard, either.
[Eros]
Serena has a sheepish look on her face, when she finally lets them out, that makes Jenny think that she forgot about them.
Blair starts out of a half-sleepy daze when the door opens, and in a second she’s on her feet like she’d never let her guard down in the first place.
No matter how many times Serena shhs her, Blair doesn’t shut up as they sneak out of the dark school and onto the sidewalk. She threatens legal action that they know she won’t take, and talks about plans that they know she didn’t have to miss, and complains about how much she can’t stand Jenny that they know she’s trying to convince herself of.
“I know, I know,” Serena says patiently, arms draped around Blair’s shoulders and gait lazy.
Over a blue headband with pearl accents, Serena rolls her eyes playfully at Jenny, and Jenny forgets for the second that she’s still mad at Serena. She feels oddly calm, and she gets the feeling like there’s a storm coming.
She hopes it takes its time. She knows it won’t.
[Ares]
Blair visits the Humphrey abode late that same night. Dan answers the door, because timing is inconvenient and maybe the world doesn’t do whatever Blair Waldorf wants it too, but she strides past him through the doorway without answering any of his incredulous nonquestions anyway, so it’s probably moot.
Jenny leads Blair to her room, calling nonanswers to her father’s legitimate questions, and wonders if Blair can feel her palm sweating around Blair’s wrist.
“So this is where little J lives,” Blair says, sitting ungracefully at the foot of Jenny’s bed, and Jenny nods and stands awkwardly in the doorway.
For a few minutes, Blair observes the surroundings, and Jenny is acutely aware of all the embarrassing things she has laying around. Even the things that aren’t embarrassing are suddenly mortifying to have, and she’s tempted to shove Blair out and ask her to come back in ten minutes.
Blair looks at Jenny, eventually, with a pensive expression, and says in a deceptively airy way, “I talked to Serena.”
Jenny says, “Oh,” and drags her desk chair underneath herself.
[Zeus]
“This doesn’t mean that I like you,” Blair promises, but Jenny laughs because she feels giddy and thinks she has every reason to. Blair’s cheeks are rosy pink and she won’t look Jenny in the eye, and it’s hilarious and confusing and so fucked up all at once, and Jenny loves every second of it.
“No, no, of course not,” Jenny says, sarcastically, and she laughs again when Blair fiddles uncomfortably with her headband. “It just means that you don’t like Serena and you decided I was the person who should hear it first.” (Jenny hears the thump of a teenage boy-sized figure collapsing onto the desk on the other side of Jenny’s wall; Blair doesn’t identify it as an eavesdropper, but jolts before trying to recompose herself and failing.)
Blair blushes down at her shoes and her voice is barely more than a murmur when she decides, “I’m leaving,” and stays put.
[Hades]
It’s late(r), when Blair loses it. She loses it in true Waldorf fashion - still composed, still prim, still Blair, but she still loses it, and there are flyaways escaping her skewed headband; her tights are in a sad puddle next to her shoes by Jenny’s door; she’s on the verge of falling apart to the point of Really Severe Breakage (but that’s normal).
Jenny watches as Blair’s flimsiest foundations collapse, watching and not thinking because there’s nothing else she can do (nothing different Blair needs her to do) except be there in physical presence alone.
When Blair reaches the end of her last rope - when she’s stopped talking about Serena, about Nate and about betrayal - Blair uncrosses her arms, falls back against Jenny’s mattress, and says, “In conclusion,” like she can really summarize it all.
“While it might be true that I do admittedly like you, to some - indefinable - extent, and your company has provided me with some relative amusements and comforts over the past few months, I am not confessing any sort of - romantic attraction to you, in the slightest.”
Nodding absently (the high’s worn off; it’s still really cute and really great that Blair likes her, but it’s too late for thinking or doing or consciousness), Jenny offers, “Yeah, sure,” as some kind of attempt to almost pretend she can’t see what she’s not supposed to.
Wearily, Blair smiles, and she says, “I’m glad that that’s understood,” and maybe that can be the end of that.
[Cassandra]
Jenny falls asleep at her desk chair, because Blair falls asleep first on her bed. It’s really uncomfortable, but more uncomfortable is the way that Dan stares at her from the doorway until she’s awake enough to realize that she’s not dreaming and he’s really looking at her like he’s in a position to judge.
(Technically, she thinks he might be. But she’s the younger sister and she’s not about to be so generous with him.)
“What do you want?” she demands, not as harshly as she wants because her mouth tastes awful and because even when Dan is being ridiculously nosy, he always manages to look like a puppy. (It’s the hair.)
He looks pointedly at Blair’s sleeping form (she’s curled up on her side, hands pillowed under her head and she looks like Sleeping Beauty only more disheveled), and then back at Jenny, like that answers any and all questions.
Rolling her eyes and stretching aching limbs, Jenny remarks, “Yeah, well,” like that answers any questions he might have, too.
Dan’s a good brother and doesn’t point out that it doesn’t, and just offers lightly, “Be…very wary of the Waldorf, all right?”
Like that’s something Jenny hadn’t known for ages now, herself.
[Apollo]
Blair sneaks out of the loft while Jenny is in the shower. She comes back to find a note taped to her mirror (xoxo it reads, and Jenny rolls her eyes but decides to let it stay instead), and no other trace.
When Jenny sees her again, it’s on Monday morning, at the steps.
“It’s about time you got here,” Blair says, not sounding annoyed and smiling at Jenny like this time, the secret isn’t just one that they both happen to be aware of; like this time, it’s a secret that they’re actually equal partners in sharing, and like this time, things are different.
Jenny grins, and brushes her bangs out of her eyes. “Morning,” she greets, like the familiar dynamic between them isn’t new at all (it doesn’t really feel new, but Hazel’s startled expression suggests otherwise), and Blair offers her a refined arm to take.
“Forgive me for not calling all weekend?” Blair asks, saccharine sweet and sounding less like a coyly manipulative bitch than she usually does. There’s something in the way that she casts an uncertain look to her side, to Jenny’s expression, that makes it seem almost kind of sincere.
Beaming because with her arm linked in Blair’s, she feels like the sun dawning on a new era, Jenny nods and teases, “Of course - just don’t do it again, mmkay?”
(She’s pretty sure that Blair lets out a tiny breath of relief, and she feels beautiful and confident and at home.)
[Penelope]
Blair kisses Jenny in the middle of a laugh.
Later, Jenny doesn’t remember what she’d said to make Blair laugh in the first place. She just remembers (and recounts to Dan, who pretends he’s not interested in her love life but is totally lying whenever he says so) that Blair was laughing, white teeth flashing and eyes shining and voice musical (No way, Dan argues, and Jenny warns, Do you want me to finish or not? to which he falls silent and doesn’t answer), and laughing, and still laughing just a bit when she’d leaned forward and kissed Jenny.
It was without the effortless grace that only Blair Waldorf could possess, and Jenny thinks in retrospect that she prefers that; that she prefers the semiawkward but generally pleasurable reality of Blair, instead of the poised and impassionate airs of the Queen Bee.
She also thinks that she’s really going to get used to this too easily, because Blair texts her with an ugly emoticon smiley face (the kind that Blair hates) later on that night, and Jenny grins at her phone as she responds, I really like you a lot because she can’t think of anything else (or anything more relevant; Clear your schedule for tomorrow night had been the initial instruction) that is of such pressing importance to tell Blair.
[Aphrodite]
rating: PG13
fandom/pairing: Gossip Girl. Blair/Jenny; unrequited Blair/Serena and also friendship; faint Serena/Dan, Jenny/Nate, and allusions to Dan/Nate bromance.
spoilers/warnings: Er, not really? Defies most canon because lame. So, AU with an ambiguous time frame; slight language; uncertain Jenny!voice; underage drinking as per GG; almost no Chuck; also this is a series of thirty kinda-drabbles in one giant thing.
summary: Jenny just wants to dethrone Blair, at first. But then Blair has feelings, and that makes everything a lot more complicated.
words: 114 (The Danaides) + 220 (Icarus) + 250 (Nemesis) + 250 (Prometheus) + 209 (Morpheus) + 220 (Achilles) + 226 (Antigone) + 230 (Pandora) + 250 (Nyx) + 250 (Hecate) + 233 (Mnemosyne) + 203 (Hestia) + 177 (Echo) + 234 (Persephone) + 249 (Dionysus) + 248 (Artemis) + 243 (Hera) + 249 (Eurydice) + 239 (Medusa) + 194 (Hermes) + 222 (Chronos) + 211 (Athena) + 174 (Eros) + 182 (Ares) + 179 (Zeus) + 153 (Hades) + 248 (Cassandra) + 204 (Apollo) + 247 (Penelope) + 221 (Aphrodite) = 6529
disclaimer: I do not own Gossip Girl, bless, or Karmin's "Brokenhearted".
a/n: Written for my femslash100Greek Mythology claim for Gossip Girl, which ended up being Just One Thing. Whoops. I'm not totally sure if this counts as a fill for le claim, but I like it all the same so dadadada, which sounds much more triumphant out loud.
Jenny smiles at her, every morning. It’s not like the way the other girls do.
They smile like they’re terrified of Blair; like they think that if they don’t smile, she’ll take it as a sign of their dissent and have their reputations taken care of, Sopranos-style.
Jenny doesn’t. Jenny smiles because she likes Blair; smiles like she wants to be Blair’s friend, and smiles like maybe she and Blair could be friends, someday.
(She knows it won’t ever make a difference. She knows that she and Blair Waldorf come from two very, very different worlds. But it doesn’t stop her from trying to bring them a little closer, in whatever way she can.)
[The Danaides]
Except there comes a time - because there’s always a time, always a situation that has to come and change things, for better or worse or just for the sake of itself - when Jenny doesn’t smile at Blair like that, anymore. When she smiles at Blair, it’s like nothing she knows Blair Waldorf has ever had directed at her before, from anyone.
(Well, maybe she’d seen Serena looking at her with it, once or twice. But it never counted with Serena, because she and Blair had that kind of friendship that was impenetrable, and otherwise indescribable.)
Jenny smiles at Blair, and it’s not just a smile. It’s a smirk, derisive and heartless, because Jenny Humphrey finds herself at the top of the social pyramid, and Blair Waldorf is the one that she savors looking down on the most.
And at first, Blair doesn’t get it. She gets it, but she doesn’t really get it; she doesn’t understand that Jenny wins. She just looks shocked at little J’s audacity, and then storms off to complain to Serena.
But eventually, she catches on. Because she’s Blair Waldorf; she’s clever, in an awful, devious way.
She stops looking shocked when Jenny simpers at her, every morning.
Instead, she just glares, and Jenny knows that she’s plotting some kind of revenge.
(It’s sort of exciting.)
[Icarus]
It’s funny, how easily Jenny gets used to being able to wave a hand and have the girls around her dissipate, heads bowed in respect, because she’s the Queen of Constance and that means absolutely everything.
Blair doesn’t think it’s so funny, and Jenny sneers at her disgusted expression. “You might want to be more careful - wouldn’t want your face to freeze that way, would you?”
(Jenny wouldn’t mind if it did. It’s a ridiculous expression, Blair’s brow furrowed and her nose wrinkled in distaste. But it’s cute, too.
She’s in a position to blaspheme herself by thinking that, now, so there’s no reason for her to blush. She does anyway, and shakes her head to disregard the thoughts.)
“Oh, little J,” Blair coos patronizingly. Jenny stiffens in her seat; glances around self-consciously at the other tables out of habit, because the nickname used to be so embarrassing when Blair had the power to make it so.
“Do you really think that you’re going to win this?” Blair’s eyebrow is arched; Jenny mimics it and means to mock, but Blair just laughs a quiet little laugh like Jenny’s adorable, and maybe a bit endearing.
Leaning in, gaze firm but not cold, Blair lowers her voice and promises, “Because you won’t - believe me, you won’t.”
Jenny supposes it’s a threat, but it doesn’t sound particularly like something she’d be otherwise inclined to avoid.
She swallows hard, and pulls out her phone as an unspoken dismissal.
Blair chuckles again as she leaves.
[Nemesis]
It turns out, Blair was right. Maybe it’s because Blair Waldorf is always right - because she’s an evil mastermind that can predict the future, and that’s how she gets her power. It’s just as likely that the universe just bends and twists itself into whatever shape she wants it to be, too, though, and Jenny can’t make a certain decision on the matter.
When she falls, she falls hard, and fast. Within three days’ time, she’s even lower in the hierarchy than she was before. And her chances of getting to the top are slimmer, too.
Blair acknowledges her, one afternoon, with a condescending smile and a falsely-friendly, “Well hi there, Jenny - how are you?”
In a word, it’s humiliating. Jenny can’t place why. She thinks it’s because she’s so ashamed to have lost, but she’s not sure, anymore, that that’s what it ever was, really.
Because it’s not just a one-afternoon thing. Blair does it every day, and always the same - a superior grin; a feigned show of amicability; a lofty laugh as she stalks away, minions trailing mindlessly behind her. And it just gets worse and worse, every time that she laughs; Jenny feels so mortified, as though she’s lost more than just her social standing and most of her morality.
It’s like Blair saw through Jenny, saw everything that she is and was and wanted to be, beyond everything that the other girls could perceive, and like she does the worst damage by never sharing Jenny’s secrets.
[Prometheus]
“What do you want, Blair?” Jenny asks, finally. Nothing really prompts it, in particular - it just feels to her like everything’s finally reached a tipping point (she used to think that the tipping point was when she outwardly compromised Blair’s position; that’s a laughable idea, now), and she doesn’t want to take it anymore.
She asks it with a sigh, tired and weary of high school drama.
Blair turns to Jenny, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Excuse me?” she asks, hands folded and ankles crossed; the picture of a prim little princess.
“Why do you keep doing this,” Jenny gestures vaguely with a hand, “To me? You won, I lost - can’t we please just call it the end and stop with -” she hesitates, suddenly unsure herself of what she’s trying to say. “This,” she repeats lamely, gaze faltering and falling to rest on curvy legs donning bright red tights.
From the corner of her eye, Jenny sees when Blair looks away, turning towards the window of the headmistress’s office again with what’s probably an exceptionally icy stare.
By the time that Blair actually deigns to reply, Jenny’s already given up hope that she would.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mutters, in a very unrefined way.
Jenny sighs.
[Morpheus]
It was never any secret that Blair and Serena were close, in a kind of way that was too close for just friendship. No one ever said anything about it, out of fear, but they all knew.
They all thought they did, at least. Jenny was one of them, because she figured it was just something between the two of them; something that they did for fun, or notoriety.
But Blair Waldorf doesn’t cry over her reputation. She laments damage done to it, for a brief period of time, and then comes back with a vengeful plan to reinstate herself as the number one. She doesn’t hide herself away, face blotched red and weepy. She doesn’t ask anyone’s opinion - and definitely not Jenny’s - about Serena; doesn’t ask anyone if he or she already knows that Serena isn’t going to choose Blair.
Not when it’s just for fun, she doesn’t.
“You love her,” Jenny says, surprised at herself for not having realized it sooner. Blair doesn’t say it, but she nods, staring at the mirror on the opposite bathroom wall.
Jenny wraps her arms around Blair’s shoulders, because Blair and Jenny don’t hate each other enough to ever leave the other sad, and alone, and rejected in the way that hurts the most.
She keeps them there because Blair lets her.
[Achilles]
“I still don’t like you,” Blair promises, and Jenny nods solemnly because she knows. “And I’m not going to help you at Constance, if that’s what you were -”
“I know,” Jenny interrupts. Blair watches her with assessing eyes, and Jenny flushes, repeating quieter, “I know.”
For a long moment, Blair keeps watching Jenny, before she hmms and settles more comfortably into her plush chaise. “But I don’t like owing debts to people, and your startling show of decency puts me in that position,” she notes, contemplatively. “So, ask for a favor, and maybe I will consider it. As long as it’s nothing too completely odious, naturally.”
A hundred different things pop into Jenny’s mind - she wants to be treated like a person and she wants invitations to parties and she wants to work with Eleanor Waldorf and she wants expensive jewelry and more than anything she wants to be all the best parts of Serena and Blair wrapped up into one uniquely-dressed personage - and she asks for none of them.
“If you’ve got some big plan for me, would you get it over with soon?”
Blair looks up from the seemingly-fascinating tassels on the throw blanket draped over the lounger, and smiles.
“Interesting. You really are something else, aren’t you, little J?”
Jenny can’t be too sure, but she doesn’t think that that’s an insult.
[Antigone]
On Monday morning, Blair is waiting to greet (or ambush) Jenny on the steps. The minions aren’t far behind, but they look confused, like they’re not sure what the plan is. Jenny doesn’t think they’re smart enough to fake that kind of bewilderment, and only sighs a little when she asks, “Is this it, then?”
“Is this what, little J?” Blair says, feigning innocence. “I’ve just come to the conclusion - after much deliberation and consultation on the matter - that your exile has gone on long enough.
“Are you ready to return to service? I am, as you must be aware, in the market for a new blond in my court.”
(Jenny admires the way that Blair’s expression only falters a little at vague mention of Serena. She thinks it’s a little stupid, that Blair won’t even be Serena’s friend now, but she also thinks that it’s not entirely unreasonable, and wonders how much it hurts Blair.)
She nods before she lets herself think of the many (many) cons to the situation.
“I think some kind of deal could be arranged,” Jenny says carefully.
Blair grins, like the unholy offspring of a clever fox and a brutal wolf, and then extends a hand down to Jenny.
There’s no hesitation when Jenny takes it, and follows Blair - only half a step behind - to the pack of sheep-minded girls, watching in puzzled awe.
[Pandora]
Being Blair’s blond turns out to be a lot more fun than Jenny anticipated. Blair doesn’t treat her like she always treated Serena, and that’s to be expected, but she doesn’t treat her like she treats the minions, either.
Jenny’s not an equal, in Blair’s eyes, but she’s about as close as any other mortal can be.
With that territory, comes the rare opportunity to observe Blair Waldorf in her natural habitat. Not the way that everyone images her to be - spoiled, lounging in tiny negligees and sipping classic martinis (which she does do, admittedly) - but in an almost natural kind of way.
Sometimes, Blair stays home on Saturday nights and watches movies, curled under a warm blanket and with a bowl of popcorn (no salt; no butter; no taste) in her lap.
(Jenny sits with her; watches Blair Waldorf smile and laugh and cry and sigh as she watches Audrey.)
Sometimes, Blair has Thursday night dinners (when her mother works late) in the kitchen, sitting at the island and picking through her salad with very little grace.
(Jenny joins her; stifles laughs when Blair tries and fails to skewer cherry tomatoes, and dodges croutons being hurled at her head in borderline playful retaliation.)
Sometimes, Blair stares at the beautiful things in her room and confesses that she misses Serena (a lot).
(Jenny listens to her; pretends she doesn’t get a pang of hurt in her chest every time Blair mentions Serena and hides how much she likes being there.)
[Nyx]
It’s during one of those times when Jenny thinks that Blair might be a real person, that Blair actually asks Jenny’s thoughts and expects a real answer.
“Humphrey -” she stops; amends, “Your brother,” with a grimace that Jenny empathizes a little with. “said that Serena misses me.”
Jenny pauses, fingers motionless in the twisted strands of an unfinished plait. She picks up quickly, clumsily. “So that’s…good, right?”
Humming, Blair squirms on the sofa, and wiggles her fingers, admiring - or already deciding she hates - the shiny eggplant color on her nails. “Yes,” she admits, and Jenny loses a segment; awkwardly shuffles two together and keeps going.
“Serena is my best friend; she always has been. It would be silly to throw all that away. Wouldn’t it?”
Jenny feels Blair’s eyes on her, legitimately waiting instead of just observing her reaction to a rhetorical question.
“Well - yeah,” she agrees, motions robotic and gaze blurry as she stares not-at-Blair.
With a barely ladylike yawn, Blair stretches her legs out from under her, and over Jenny’s lap. Her head tilts back against the arm of the sofa, and her eyes flutter shut as she breathes softly through her mouth.
“Do you think I can do it?” Blair asks, sounding uncertain for the first time Jenny has ever known her.
There’s no need to pause. “Of course,” Jenny answers, blinking and refocusing her eyes on still-nothing. “You’re Blair Waldorf,” she reminds, and Jenny doesn’t need to add that that means she can do anything.
[Hecate]
To say that Jenny regrets her advice would be correct, but it would also be mean, so when Dan asks her if she misses her new best friend - he’s teasing, until she blushes and mutters a embarrassed shut up that says more than she could ever have wanted it to - she doesn’t say no. She tells him that Blair and Serena are like that; tells him that Blair would have forgiven Serena (Dan interjects, “What was that fight even about?”, and Jenny avoids the question) with or without Jenny’s input.
But she does miss Blair, even if she doesn’t say it. She even prepares herself to miss Blair, after their conversation together, because she knows that with Serena back, Blair won’t need Jenny anymore.
And she’s right. Blair don’t wait for Jenny in the morning; she just breezes past, in a mist of classy, expensive perfumes intermingling together, because of course Serena and Blair are so in-sync that their perfumes go together.
Later, Penelope snorts, “It was only a matter of time, J,” and Jenny rolls her eyes at her.
She hates that Penelope has a point, and ignores the feelings of jealousy, and betrayal, and abandonment, and hurt that bubble up inside and threaten to swallow her whole.
She can’t ignore that she really misses Blair Waldorf a lot, and can’t ignore that she doesn’t know what to do with herself, anymore.
[Mnemosyne]
If Serena knows that Blair loves her - if she knows that she holds a special place in Blair Waldorf’s heart that no one else can take from her; if she knows just how much she actually means - she does a very good job of hiding it.
Serena doesn’t act like she’s better than anyone else, because Blair Waldorf loves her. She doesn’t act like it makes her any different, she doesn’t act like it validates her personality. She just goes with it; considers it another part of her life (a small part), and returns those affections - in a more platonic way - to Blair in kind, not out of social convention, but because she really likes Blair, just for herself, too.
It’s easy to envy the easy way that Serena lives with it; the way she just glides through life, a smile on her face and an arm linked with hers. Jenny likes Serena; doesn’t want to be that girl who gets consumed with stupid jealousy and then lashes out at good people for no reason, but it’s hard to do when Serena is so Serena, and Jenny is just a Humphrey, and Blair only has eyes for one real blond in her life.
[Hestia]
But it’s one of those things that Jenny gets used to. It’s strange, having to adapt to seeing Blair with Serena, since it was something that used to be so common, and only went out of style for a short period of time - but Jenny manages it.
She doesn’t smile at Blair in the mornings, anymore. She doesn’t look at Blair, in the mornings, anymore, and Blair doesn’t look at her, either.
Jenny’s not sure why, but there’s something very awkward about it, and she thinks it’s probably best to just avoid the subject until things are better.
Nate Archibald, Jenny discovers, is not a bad guy. He’s actually a really nice guy, as nice as everyone says. And he manages to like Dan and Chuck Bass at the same time, too, so obviously there’s something wrong with him - but in a good way.
Jenny likes him. She wouldn’t say she like likes him, because she’s not six years old anymore, but - he’s nice. A really nice guy.
(And he doesn’t like to talk about Blair, either.)
[Echo]
Jenny should know better, though, than to think that a girl can be friends with a guy without there being something more to it. Not at Constance, and not while Gossip Girl’s around.
She should know better, anyway, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t even consider it, really, until Serena approaches her on a dreary Tuesday with her arms crossed and a disappointed look on her face.
“You and Nate, Jenny?” she asks, as if the disbelief stems from Jenny, rather than Nate himself.
Blinking, Jenny repeats, “Me and Nate, Serena?” blankly, and it hits her a moment too late. She ohs solemnly, and Serena just nods slowly, gaze pointed.
“No, no, no,” Jenny assures hastily, waving her hands. “I don’t - it’s totally not anything like that. He’s just, he’s a friend, you know?”
It’s a bad question, and Jenny winces. “Really, it’s nothing. I kinda - like somebody else.”
She meant for it to be a lie, a cover that she shouldn’t have needed but that couldn’t hurt, either.
Quirking a brow, Serena’s mood lightens instantly and she prompts, “Oh? And who might that be?”
Jenny’s suddenly glad she’s never had an older sister. “Just -”
She means to say nobody, to brush it off and get Serena off her back, just for a little while.
But she doesn’t say it. She’s having a hard time lying, these days. Maybe it’s just a Serena thing.
[Persephone]
“I’m not old enough to drink,” Jenny protests. It’s not like that’s ever mattered before, but she’s not keen on the idea of Serena getting her drunk and letting her tongue run loose - Jenny knows way too much for that to be a good idea.
Still, Serena orders an appletini for her, anyway, and Jenny doesn’t argue anymore when she takes it.
It can’t be that bad an idea.
Except, three drinks later, and it is. Jenny just doesn’t quite realize it, as she nestles against Serena’s clavicle and notices that she smells like mangoes.
“I really like her a lot,” Jenny says, and she laughs when she does because it’s funny, that she’s telling the girl that Blair has a crush on about her crush on Blair. “She’s - she’s so pretty, and she’s such a bitch, too,” (she grimaces; her mouth tastes funny) “but - not always, y’know? Like, she’s a person.”
Serena laughs, sounds like a bell or a fairy or that fairy who sounded like a bell, and pets Jenny’s hair. “I know, J, B’s really nice when you get to know her. It’s nice that you like her - but now you’ve gotta tell her, you know that, right?”
Jenny shakes her head. Blair’s mouth probably tastes like vanilla, or cinnamon. Jenny isn’t quite sure what cinnamon tastes like.
“No - no, because she’s not nice - and I mean, like, I’m not either, but -”
There’s a but, in there somewhere. Jenny just doesn’t remember what it is.
[Dionysus]
The next time Jenny sees Serena, she’s sober. It’s too bad, because Serena’s with Blair.
Jenny tries to mind her own business, tries to make herself as inconspicuous as she possibly can (the hot pink hem of her dress might be a give-away) when they approach, but it doesn’t work.
Of course it doesn’t.
Formally, Blair perches herself on the stone bench across from Jenny. Her legs are crossed and her arms are folded under her as she leans across the table, and smiles at Jenny like she knows more secrets than usual.
Serena takes a seat between the two. She catches Jenny’s eye, and nods surreptitiously, like she’s doing Jenny a favor - and Jenny supposes that Serena might honestly believe that.
“So, little J,” Blair greets, all smiles and double-edged everything. “Serena tells me that you had something to tell me - did you finally decide what that favor was, you wanted?”
(A part of Jenny’s mind tries to think that it sounds like an excuse, but she shoves it away and keeps it quiet because it’s not really helping.)
Jenny hesitates; glances at Serena and sees a broad grin; tries not to roll her eyes and then fumbles, “Uh, yeah. I, um - I want to sit on the steps. With you,” Blair raises an eyebrow and Jenny adds, “Both.” Serena facepalms very obviously, but Blair doesn’t ask about it, just keeps watching Jenny. “For a month,” Jenny finishes, a little more firmly.
Serena doesn’t look entirely disappointed.
[Artemis]
As it happens, Serena proceeds to be suspiciously absent.
Jenny is pretty sure that that invalidates the deal, but she doesn’t argue when Blair smiles at her, wide and welcoming like the crocodile to the fishes, and daintily pats the stone next to her.
“Serena has gone on another of her mysterious trips,” Blair says in explanation, and Jenny gets the sense that Blair is hurting, so she doesn’t press the matter.
Blair makes conversation immediately, avoiding anything really significant.
“So, I hear you and Nate are getting to be very cozy,” she says conversationally (it’s a dare, Jenny guesses).
Slowly, spoon dragging through creamy pink yogurt, Jenny replies, “Not really,” and keeps a careful eye on Blair’s expression. “He and Dan have been hanging out a lot lately, and I’ve just kinda - been there.”
Unconvinced but munificent, Blair hms and leaves it at that.
Until Jenny stands to leave, anyway.
Blair pulls her back down by the wrist, eyes narrowed.
“You know, of course, little J, that Nate is offlimits? Especially to you?”
Blair’s tone reminds Jenny of why they fought; of why Jenny wanted so badly to beat Blair, no matter what the cost. It’s a cruel tone, unkind and unfriendly.
And whether it’s a mistake or not, Jenny takes the bait.
“Of course, Blair,” she repeats, voice lilting. “I know that jealousy’s not a good look on you.”
Jenny hears Blair’s shocked intake of breath when her back is turned.
[Hera]
Eventually, Jenny does get involved with Nate. It’s not just to spite Blair, even though there’s a lot of that involved.
It’s because Nate is nice, and sweet, and Dan likes him (so in theory, Dan can’t hate him), and because Jenny can’t think of a reason not to. She’s angry, and she’s impatient, and she gets more and more frustrated with Blair every time that the name Serena spills from her lips (she’s angry at Serena, too; angry at her for putting Jenny in this situation; angry at her for trying to help Jenny like charity, without ever realizing that she’s the reason Jenny would need help to begin with) - but none of those are reasons to say no.
She has sex with Nate, and he’s nice, and sweet, and gentle about it. Jenny’s pretty sure she doesn’t orgasm, even though she does a lot of screaming and moaning for his benefit.
In the morning, he wraps an arm around her waist and kisses the base of her neck.
She says, “I should go,” and ends up in Blair’s room.
Blair strokes Jenny’s hair and murmurs uncharacteristic things and doesn’t ask questions, when Jenny cries.
Jenny thinks that Blair must know who it was, and can’t figure why Blair bothers with a little Jenny Humphrey.
(And then Blair notes, “After all, my first time was with Chuck, and the world didn’t end,” like that’s even a little bit helpful, even though it’s not and she probably knows that.)
[Eurydice]
They talk about it, eventually, because they have to.
Blair doesn’t react much, just stares at Jenny patiently until the whole gruesome tale is out.
“I told you he was offlimits,” she reminds, and Jenny could scream, because after everything - and there’s an everything there; she knows it - she can’t believe that that’s the only thing Blair is going to have a problem with.
So she does scream. She screams, and then she cries, and then she screams some more, and then she whispers because she’s run out of other options.
She waits for the cowardice. Waits for Blair to laugh and tell her that there’s nothing there, and that honestly, little J, where do you come up with this stuff?
She’s not prepared for Blair to wipe the runny mascara from under her eyes, and she starts, squirming her chin out of Blair’s grip.
Blair takes it again, holding tighter this time, and murmurs, “J, J - Jenny, relax, it’s not like I’m going to slit your throat.”
“I get it - Nate’s cute; I completely understand,” Blair says, and she must be lying because Blair Waldorf isn’t stupid.
“I will be gracious and not hold this against you,” she promises, “But only because I think we might have become friends, little J.”
Jenny swats Blair’s hands away, and leaves without another word.
She clutches the black-streaked Kleenex in her hand until she gets home and realizes she has it.
[Medusa]
Things don’t fall apart when Serena comes back. Things fell apart before that, so Serena turning up to be Blair’s faithful rock doesn’t really make any difference.
Jenny has lunch with them on the steps, because it bothers Blair almost as much as it bothers her, and Jenny is bitter enough to think that that’s fair.
Serena picks up on the mood shift instantly, and doesn’t mince words when demanding an explanation - “Now what?” she asks, simply, glaring at either of them in turn.
Blair replies first, hmphing and complaining, “I have no idea - I should be the one upset with Jenny, not the other way around.”
Rolling her eyes, Jenny declares, “Bullshit,” and focuses on the clumps of granola in her salad when Blair takes that as proof of her point in the court of Serena.
When Serena gets tired of it (she lasts a while; Jenny’s surprised, but she guesses petulantly that that’s an acquired skill), she grabs either of them by the arm - none too gently, and Jenny embarrasses herself by noticing how her own and Blair’s protests almost sound a little idyllically musical together - and drags them into the school.
[Hermes]
They bang on the door of the supply closet that Serena unceremoniously shoves them both into, but Constance apparently does a pretty nice job of soundproofing their supply closets. Jenny isn’t sure why that is, and she really, really doesn’t want to know.
Fix things!! Serena texts to them, the beep of a new message interrupting the flurry of Blair’s thumbs over her keypad.
Blair turns on Jenny as a reflex, and says, “Great - now look what you’ve done,” like it’s Jenny’s fault. (Like Jenny’s put Blair in sucky situations like this before, too. Which, is also untrue.)
Jenny doesn’t like being locked in a closet (that might be ironic; she’ll have to ask Serena later if it was intentional or not, and read the way that her expression reveals understanding and realization to figure out if Serena is serious when she says Yeah, totally, that was definitely the idea) any more than Blair apparently does, but at the moment, she dislikes Blair even more than that.
She leans against a wall not housing a shelf of paint and paper products, and slides down until she feels cold tile underneath her. “I’ve got time,” Jenny states, and Blair takes on that expression again, like Jenny’s being audacious and insubordinate and all that other rebellious shit.
This time, Jenny cares a lot less.
[Chronos]
“You’re my fault, aren’t you?” Blair says after a while. She’s mostly calmed down; she’s stopped stomping her feet and has given up making empty promises to God and she’s not even whimpering any more at the fact that the battery in her phone is dead. She’s about as mellow as Jenny thinks Blair Waldorf can be, in the situation.
Jenny peers at Blair, and puts down the sharpie she’d been drawing on her palm with. “What does that even mean?” she asks, tired of people in the Upper-East Side who say things that don’t make sense just so that they can keep talking.
Gesturing ambiguously with a hand, Blair elaborates, “You,” unhelpfully, and knocks the toes of her shoes together. “You can really be a remarkable bitch, when you want to be - is that my fault?”
When Jenny thinks about it, it’s not, because she’s just her, independent of Blair’s existence whether that’s actually possible or not. When Jenny thinks about it more, it probably is, because all these years, all Jenny’s really wanted was to be like the popular girls, to fit in with the popular girls, to be liked by the popular girls, with Blair above all the others.
“No,” she lies, but Blair probably hears yes anyway.
[Athena]
It’s almost a game. They take turns, asking questions with meanings that dance around what each of them really wants to know, and answering them with lies that wouldn’t fool anyone but that make them feel a little more secure anyway.
Jenny asks, “Do you still love Serena?” but she says, “You and Serena seem pretty…okay.”
Blair confesses, “I’m moving past it,” but Jenny hears, “Of course - why shouldn’t we be ‘okay’?”
It’s easy, because there are no consequences because none of it technically means what it should. And Jenny doesn’t doubt that Blair likes that just fine, but it bothers Jenny, nags at her and makes her feel like some kind of coward.
“You deserve someone to make you happy,” Jenny says aloud, and Blair turns to her, startled, like she’s not sure whether Jenny actually said that, or whether Blair’s interpretation of it just had vivid audio to go along.
Quietly, Blair says, “I’m not sure that I do,” and Jenny understands full-well Blair’s bewilderment, because she’s not sure what she heard, either.
[Eros]
Serena has a sheepish look on her face, when she finally lets them out, that makes Jenny think that she forgot about them.
Blair starts out of a half-sleepy daze when the door opens, and in a second she’s on her feet like she’d never let her guard down in the first place.
No matter how many times Serena shhs her, Blair doesn’t shut up as they sneak out of the dark school and onto the sidewalk. She threatens legal action that they know she won’t take, and talks about plans that they know she didn’t have to miss, and complains about how much she can’t stand Jenny that they know she’s trying to convince herself of.
“I know, I know,” Serena says patiently, arms draped around Blair’s shoulders and gait lazy.
Over a blue headband with pearl accents, Serena rolls her eyes playfully at Jenny, and Jenny forgets for the second that she’s still mad at Serena. She feels oddly calm, and she gets the feeling like there’s a storm coming.
She hopes it takes its time. She knows it won’t.
[Ares]
Blair visits the Humphrey abode late that same night. Dan answers the door, because timing is inconvenient and maybe the world doesn’t do whatever Blair Waldorf wants it too, but she strides past him through the doorway without answering any of his incredulous nonquestions anyway, so it’s probably moot.
Jenny leads Blair to her room, calling nonanswers to her father’s legitimate questions, and wonders if Blair can feel her palm sweating around Blair’s wrist.
“So this is where little J lives,” Blair says, sitting ungracefully at the foot of Jenny’s bed, and Jenny nods and stands awkwardly in the doorway.
For a few minutes, Blair observes the surroundings, and Jenny is acutely aware of all the embarrassing things she has laying around. Even the things that aren’t embarrassing are suddenly mortifying to have, and she’s tempted to shove Blair out and ask her to come back in ten minutes.
Blair looks at Jenny, eventually, with a pensive expression, and says in a deceptively airy way, “I talked to Serena.”
Jenny says, “Oh,” and drags her desk chair underneath herself.
[Zeus]
“This doesn’t mean that I like you,” Blair promises, but Jenny laughs because she feels giddy and thinks she has every reason to. Blair’s cheeks are rosy pink and she won’t look Jenny in the eye, and it’s hilarious and confusing and so fucked up all at once, and Jenny loves every second of it.
“No, no, of course not,” Jenny says, sarcastically, and she laughs again when Blair fiddles uncomfortably with her headband. “It just means that you don’t like Serena and you decided I was the person who should hear it first.” (Jenny hears the thump of a teenage boy-sized figure collapsing onto the desk on the other side of Jenny’s wall; Blair doesn’t identify it as an eavesdropper, but jolts before trying to recompose herself and failing.)
Blair blushes down at her shoes and her voice is barely more than a murmur when she decides, “I’m leaving,” and stays put.
[Hades]
It’s late(r), when Blair loses it. She loses it in true Waldorf fashion - still composed, still prim, still Blair, but she still loses it, and there are flyaways escaping her skewed headband; her tights are in a sad puddle next to her shoes by Jenny’s door; she’s on the verge of falling apart to the point of Really Severe Breakage (but that’s normal).
Jenny watches as Blair’s flimsiest foundations collapse, watching and not thinking because there’s nothing else she can do (nothing different Blair needs her to do) except be there in physical presence alone.
When Blair reaches the end of her last rope - when she’s stopped talking about Serena, about Nate and about betrayal - Blair uncrosses her arms, falls back against Jenny’s mattress, and says, “In conclusion,” like she can really summarize it all.
“While it might be true that I do admittedly like you, to some - indefinable - extent, and your company has provided me with some relative amusements and comforts over the past few months, I am not confessing any sort of - romantic attraction to you, in the slightest.”
Nodding absently (the high’s worn off; it’s still really cute and really great that Blair likes her, but it’s too late for thinking or doing or consciousness), Jenny offers, “Yeah, sure,” as some kind of attempt to almost pretend she can’t see what she’s not supposed to.
Wearily, Blair smiles, and she says, “I’m glad that that’s understood,” and maybe that can be the end of that.
[Cassandra]
Jenny falls asleep at her desk chair, because Blair falls asleep first on her bed. It’s really uncomfortable, but more uncomfortable is the way that Dan stares at her from the doorway until she’s awake enough to realize that she’s not dreaming and he’s really looking at her like he’s in a position to judge.
(Technically, she thinks he might be. But she’s the younger sister and she’s not about to be so generous with him.)
“What do you want?” she demands, not as harshly as she wants because her mouth tastes awful and because even when Dan is being ridiculously nosy, he always manages to look like a puppy. (It’s the hair.)
He looks pointedly at Blair’s sleeping form (she’s curled up on her side, hands pillowed under her head and she looks like Sleeping Beauty only more disheveled), and then back at Jenny, like that answers any and all questions.
Rolling her eyes and stretching aching limbs, Jenny remarks, “Yeah, well,” like that answers any questions he might have, too.
Dan’s a good brother and doesn’t point out that it doesn’t, and just offers lightly, “Be…very wary of the Waldorf, all right?”
Like that’s something Jenny hadn’t known for ages now, herself.
[Apollo]
Blair sneaks out of the loft while Jenny is in the shower. She comes back to find a note taped to her mirror (xoxo it reads, and Jenny rolls her eyes but decides to let it stay instead), and no other trace.
When Jenny sees her again, it’s on Monday morning, at the steps.
“It’s about time you got here,” Blair says, not sounding annoyed and smiling at Jenny like this time, the secret isn’t just one that they both happen to be aware of; like this time, it’s a secret that they’re actually equal partners in sharing, and like this time, things are different.
Jenny grins, and brushes her bangs out of her eyes. “Morning,” she greets, like the familiar dynamic between them isn’t new at all (it doesn’t really feel new, but Hazel’s startled expression suggests otherwise), and Blair offers her a refined arm to take.
“Forgive me for not calling all weekend?” Blair asks, saccharine sweet and sounding less like a coyly manipulative bitch than she usually does. There’s something in the way that she casts an uncertain look to her side, to Jenny’s expression, that makes it seem almost kind of sincere.
Beaming because with her arm linked in Blair’s, she feels like the sun dawning on a new era, Jenny nods and teases, “Of course - just don’t do it again, mmkay?”
(She’s pretty sure that Blair lets out a tiny breath of relief, and she feels beautiful and confident and at home.)
[Penelope]
Blair kisses Jenny in the middle of a laugh.
Later, Jenny doesn’t remember what she’d said to make Blair laugh in the first place. She just remembers (and recounts to Dan, who pretends he’s not interested in her love life but is totally lying whenever he says so) that Blair was laughing, white teeth flashing and eyes shining and voice musical (No way, Dan argues, and Jenny warns, Do you want me to finish or not? to which he falls silent and doesn’t answer), and laughing, and still laughing just a bit when she’d leaned forward and kissed Jenny.
It was without the effortless grace that only Blair Waldorf could possess, and Jenny thinks in retrospect that she prefers that; that she prefers the semiawkward but generally pleasurable reality of Blair, instead of the poised and impassionate airs of the Queen Bee.
She also thinks that she’s really going to get used to this too easily, because Blair texts her with an ugly emoticon smiley face (the kind that Blair hates) later on that night, and Jenny grins at her phone as she responds, I really like you a lot because she can’t think of anything else (or anything more relevant; Clear your schedule for tomorrow night had been the initial instruction) that is of such pressing importance to tell Blair.
[Aphrodite]