Fic: Rewritten (GG/TVD Crossover) ch 2/?
Title: Rewritten
Author: fading_tales
Pairing: Damon/Blair (Vampire Diaries/Gossip Girl crossover)
Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl or any of their characters.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Thinking back she realizes that maybe things would’ve been different if she didn’t go home that night. Maybe he would’ve grown tired of waiting and left. Maybe then everything would’ve gone according to plan. And maybe, just maybe she wouldn’t have swayed like she did, like she would, like she does every single time he comes stumbling into her life. Then again history has a way of repeating itself and in the end she’s not sure if she wants it rewritten.
chapter 1
Chapter Two: Dancing with the Devil
She wakes up to find him gone. She’s not surprised, but she’s disappointed and she hates that she is.
He’d show up when he wants and leaves when he wants. In and out of her life as suddenly as he came into it. Inconsiderate of any consequences that may result. That’s the typical Damon she thinks dispassionately. Then she rebukes herself and recalls that actually that’s not quite true.
She was the one that left the first time.
“I’m sorry… I can’t be what you need.”
“You don’t have to be. Just… don’t leave. I just want you to be here. Just stay,” he pleads.
“I can’t.”
“Wait, please.”
She doesn’t.
She shakes away the memories and the old regrets and goes back to curling her hair to perfection. She has a busy day today and she doesn’t have time to waste thinking about Damon or what could have been or what is that cannot be changed. She tries smiling at a reflection that doesn’t want to smile back and gives up before shutting the door behind her.
xxx
The party had been in the making for weeks from what she could gather from Serena’s not so subtle interrogations. To reward her friend for the effort, she had left various rather obvious (obvious to people other than Serena Van der Woodsen) clues to how she’d like her birthday party to go. So when she turned the key and opened the door to find the entire Upper East Side population all decked out to the nines on the other side screaming surprise at her, champagne glasses in their hands, it wasn’t the reason why her eyes went wide in shock.
Rather it was the presence of a certain tall, dark and irritatingly handsome vampire standing beside her best friend, with a rather smug look on his face.
“Happy Birthday, Blair!” Serena gushes.
She blinks several times as the blonde pulls her into a tight hug and Damon smirks at her over Serena’s shoulder.
xxx
It is fifteen minutes past seven and he finds himself walking towards the grand white house on Marble Hill. The usher asks for his name and he hands him the calling card he had received earlier that day.
“Welcome, Mr. Salvatore. Please come on in.”
Damon tips his hat to the usher and takes a step across the threshold and through double doors that reveal a lively party in progress.
In the midst of the hoard of polite society, he sees his mystery lady presiding over a group of London’s finest plutocrats. Amongst them he recognizes several eligible bachelors.
“Mr. Salvatore. How lovely for you to join us. I wasn’t sure if you were coming,” she greets as he makes his way towards her circle.
“How could I refuse your invitation, Ms. Waldorf? I apologize for the tardiness,” he says, smiling at the surrounding gentry. As he leans in to give her the customary kiss on the cheek he whispers, “I just didn’t realize that your invitation was to a party.”
“Do you often get invitations of a more intimate nature from ladies you’ve only just met?” she whispers back in a falsely scandalized voice.
Unfortunately society customs restricted him from answering as he wished before another gentleman clasped his shoulder in a hearty greeting.
“Salvatore! I wasn’t aware you and Ms. Waldorf were acquainted!”
“Oh, Mr. Salvatore and I have only just recently met but I’m sure we’ll become fast friends. Won’t we, Mr. Salvatore?” Blair chimes in.
She’s pretty when she smiles, he notices. Yet there was something about the glint of those pearly whites that seems to suggest they are of a more feral nature than young English ladies should possess.
“Fast friends indeed, Ms. Waldorf,” he answers.
From the get go, he found himself so completely enamored in a way he had wholly unsuspected he was capable of being, at least not for anyone other than the infamous Katherine Pierce.
xxx
By now she should be used to finding him in unexpected places, but she still hasn’t gotten over it. No matter how many times he surprises her.
“Were you surprised?” Serena asks.
“Completely,” Blair answers truthfully. “And you even got my good old friend Damon to come!”
She tries sounding cheerful, but judging from his wince she knows she must have failed. The stress on “old” comment was probably unnecessary and Serena’s eyebrows are knitting together in confusion as Damon rolled his eyes despite maintaining the smiling façade.
“What are you doing here?” she says sweetly through gritted teeth.
“Surprising you,” he answers cheekily.
“Blair, you should’ve told me that you had an old friend visiting! It was a good thing I ran into him earlier this morning so that he could make it to your party!” Serena chirps.
“Well… he’s only in town for a little while so I didn’t bother.”
“All the more reason!”
“Yes… well… that’s just wonderful,” she bites out exasperatedly. “Serena, do you mind if I borrow Damon for a second?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer; her hand is already in a death grip on Damon’s arm tugging him away.
She drags him through the throngs of people wishing her a happy birthday. Her smiles more like grimaces than anything that resembles pleasure.
They reach the end of the hallway and she shoves him into the first empty room she finds, which as it turns out was Serena’s bedroom.
“Whao there, Waldorf. If you wanted to get me alone and have you way with me you could’ve just asked. No need to man handle me.”
“What are you doing here?” she demands.
“Well, I can’t miss a Waldorf soiree could I? To be honest, Blair, I’m hurt that you didn’t invite me yourself.”
“It was a surprise party, how could I have invited you?”
“Oh please. You hate surprises. I’m pretty sure you micromanaged the entire thing yourself.”
“Apparently I did a great job because guess what? I succeeded. Here I stand before you surprised!”
“Aren’t you a little bit happy that I’m here for your birthday?”
“Damon, look… it’s been a while since we’ve seen one another so maybe you didn’t get it when I told you the first time. I don’t kill people anymore. I may not be Stefan the squirrel-eating-vampire, but I don’t live like that anymore. I know how you are and I get it. And I’m fine with it too, but not my people, Damon. My people are off limits. Do you understand?”
Her people. It wounds him to recall that she’s formed a life for herself now that doesn’t include him. Why does it feel like he’s constantly stuck in the past and she’s moved on?
“I couldn’t care less about your little humans.”
“Then give me your word that you won’t touch them.”
“You really need that much confirmation?” He says when what he means to say is, “Is your trust in me so little?”
“Yes.”
It amazes him how a single syllable could sting harder than a slap to the face.
She sees the hurt slip through his nonchalance, and she hates herself for it, but he needs to know that she has people to protect now. It can’t be like it used to be anymore.
“You’d do the same. If it were your people, you’d do the same, Damon,” she reasons, whether it’s with herself or with him it’s not clear.
“I have no such thing.”
“You have me,” she wants to say, but it doesn’t quite leave her lips. She just stands there, fists clenched at her sides, biting her tongue.
“I won’t hurt your humans. I swear it.”
He turns the other cheek and buries the hurt deep while simultaneously turning back on that same old charming Salvatore smile.
He plops himself on the bed, reaches into his pocket and throws the contents in her direction.
She catches it one handedly with the reflexes that only the supernatural possess. It’s funny how easily she can slip back into her vampiric nature when he’s around.
“What is this?”
“Open it,” he says.
“Why? Are snakes going to come out?”
“Open it,” he presses.
She opens the box and looks back up at him, blinking in a mixture of shock and confusion.
“It’s not Erickson Beamon, but it was a hell lot harder to find.”
She frowns as she realizes he’s been keeping stricter tabs on her than she originally thought.
“How did you come by this?”
He doesn’t answer and merely gets up and takes the box from her, and pulls out the antiquated locket strung on a delicate gold necklace and drapes it around her throat.
“I know it might clash a bit with your outfit, but…”
“You found my mother’s locket.”
“Yes… the catch on the lock is still broken though. I couldn’t get the jeweler to fix it without damaging it,” he answers.
Her mother’s locket had been pawned off ages ago when her family lost everything and has been traded through so many hands she’s lost count. She had given up trying to find it, but apparently he took up the task himself. She shouldn’t be surprised that he remembered, he remembers everything. Even the things she wishes he would forget.
“Must you always go for the dramatic grand gesture? A simple card would have been sufficient.”
“Now you and I both know that you would flay me alive if I came bearing a mere hallmark card.”
“You can’t always fix everything with shiny baubles, you know.”
“No, but I can try. It worked out alright the first time,” he replies, glancing down at the ever present ruby ring on her finger.
She self consciously hides her hand behind her back.
“That’s different. It was a practical gift. This… is more sentimental. And not like you.”
“You don’t like it?”
“Of course I do,” she sighs. “That’s what’s bothering me. I’m supposed to be angry with you.”
“A simple thank you would have sufficed.”
“I… I thought you left this morning.”
“Well I didn’t.”
“I can see that.”
She fingers the locket and watches him through the mirror on top Serena’s vanity table. This type of gift doesn’t come out of thin air. It means that he had been planning a visit a long time coming and it wasn’t just Katherine’s sudden appearance that prompted him to come find her. She doesn’t know whether she should be pleased or worried.
“I… guess I owe you an apology now or something.”
“Yes. Yes, you do,” he replies smugly as he positions himself in a lounging position, hands tucked behind his head. “You’ve been very mean to me.”
“Well you can’t really blame me. We both know how you are.”
“Is that your idea of an apology? You can do better than that.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “And thanks… for the gift.”
He laughs. “Better. But it’s not going to be that easy. However I do like your progress.”
He takes several steps towards her until they were but a hand span away.
Leaning in, he whispers in her ear, “I’m going to make you work for it.”
The words sends shivers down her spine, whether in pleasure or terror she’s not quite sure. He backs off and gives her his double edged smile.
“People will start talking if the birthday girl isn’t at her own party and we wouldn’t want that would we?”
“No…”
“Better get back out there then.”
She watches him wearily as he walks to the door and closes it behind him as he rejoins the party on the other side. She waits exactly five minutes before following him out the door.
xxx
He watches her throughout the evening as she makes nice with various very (self)important persons. Her every action is the picture of a lady of high society. It’s all just a little too perfect, a little too neat and when Damon sees something so pristine he feels the need to dirty it.
He manages to catch her in a rare moment of solitude when she goes to powder her nose, shutting the door close behind him and wicked thoughts in his head.
“Mr. Salvatore. How strange to find you in the ladies’ room… unless there’s a secret you are hiding that you’d like to share with me?” she says slyly as she glances down to his nether regions. “I should’ve known that the rumors about you were too outrageous to be true.”
“Oh yes, they are much more outrageous in reality,” he answers glibly. “And should you ever need me to prove it to you, I will be happy to oblige.”
“You’re a real charmer aren’t you? You must think yourself a gift to womankind.”
“I consider myself a champion of beautiful ladies, such as yourself.”
“Does that line usually work for you?”
“Usually.”
“Well there’s a first time to everything isn’t there?”
“I have a feeling that this will become the first of many more to come.”
She smirks and turns back to the mirror to powder her nose.
“And what about you, Ms. Waldorf? You appear to be a darling in society… the perfect lady. And yet…”
“And yet what?”
She closes her compact with a snap and turns around to meet his eyes again. They are quite the most beautiful sea-blue eyes she has ever seen.
“And yet you’re not what you seem.”
“I’m not? Then please enlighten me. What am I?”
“You are not as well mannered as you’d like people to think.” He punctuates his words with a kiss on the inside of both her wrists. “There’s a fire in your eyes, that doesn’t match the innocent smile on your lips.”
“You are overstepping your boundaries, Mr. Salvatore,” she warns.
“Then why are you smiling?” he grins.”Devilishly so might I add. Quite different from the one you show to everybody else.”
She wretches her hands from his and stalks away.
“I long to find out just exactly what kind of skeletons you are hiding in your closet, Ms. Waldorf,” he calls out after her.
She pauses in her step to give him a most infuriatingly striking smile over her shoulder that translates as two parts scorn and one part come-hither. He always did love a good chase.
xxx
This is the second time Damon has been “introduced” to Chuck Bass and despite all the delighted-to-make-your-acquaintance’s and nice-to-meet-you’s he means not a single word. It might be his possessiveness talking, but he doesn’t quite like the affections Blair has grown for the human boy. Nevertheless, he doesn’t like to be on Blair’s bad side and so he behaves himself and keeps his conversations fairly civil.
“So did the circus have a clearance sale on suits or something?”
Fairly being the operative word.
Before the young Bass could dish out his own acerbic insult involving Fonzie references, Blair had pulled Damon away to ‘introduce’ him to other guests.
“Must you be a jackass all of the time?” Blair whispers severely all the while smiling sweetly and waving to an acquaintance across the room.
Why is it that he always has to seesaw between being sweet one moment and being a complete inconsiderate asshole the next? It makes it all the more difficult for her to keep her current normal life separate from her past when she’s too busy trying to decipher which role he’s playing.
“It was just a bit fun. A bit of banter between a superior man and a slightly more inferior one.”
She’s not having any of it and so he pulls on his most charming smile.
“Oh, don’t be angry.”
She continues glaring daggers at him, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. He would have made a comment about how their position is doing wonders for her cleavage if only she wasn’t trying to vaporize him with her eyes at the moment.
“You’re ruining the festive mood. Come on, I was just having fun. You know fun? You use to have it.”
“Don’t antagonize, Chuck. I don’t want to deal with your stupid little posturing competition. There’s enough drama without you patronizing him. This is why I didn’t want you two to meet.”
“But we already met,” he corrects.
“That was ages ago! And I wiped that!”
“What’s the harm? I gave you my word didn’t I?”
“And what about flirting with Serena?”
“I was just being nice!” he says defensively. Secretly he’s pleased that she noticed.
“You cause trouble wherever you go, Damon. And then you’re going to leave when the dust settles. But you know what? I’m still going to be here. It’s my life now. And I’m going to have to deal with all the consequences of your actions when you’re gone.”
She makes a move to leave when his hand catches hers.
“I was stupid.”
She rolls her eyes and opens her mouth to make an acerbic addendum, but he cuts her off.
“And jealous. I haven’t seen you in forever and your ‘friends’ have been monopolizing you all night.”
Once again, he makes her sway in the way that only he could.
Her hard glare seems to have softened after that and so he decided to push his luck.
“Dance with me. Come on, you owe me a dance,” he smiles charmingly.
She rolls her eyes, but extends her hand all the same.
His mind wanders to memories of various ballroom parties; the lighting on her face in particular reminds him of the one in 1961. If he recalls correctly she was turning eighteen at that one, too.
xxx
She leans forward, closes her eyes and makes a wish. Eighteen candles are soon extinguished amidst the cheers and clapping of London’s best and brightest. They are all clamoring birthday wishes in her direction, but her attention is on one person and one person alone.
“Happy birthday,” he murmurs before retreating back into the crowd as others make their way to give her similar greetings.
His kiss on her cheek had been chaste, but his eyes had promised something of a more wicked nature for when he gets her alone and away from prying eyes.
After the cake is cut and more champagne is poured, she makes her excuses and goes looking for him.
She finds him easily enough, sitting outside on the balcony despite the freezing temperature. As she steps outside she pulls the collar of her coat up to cover her ears.
“You’re a real pro, you know that?” he says without turning around to face her.
“Excuse me?”
“This act that you keep up, this semblance of being human, you never let the façade drop. Not even for a second. There’s no one watching, yet you still feign cold. Have you ever consider yourself being on the silver screen? You’d make a wonderful actress. I would come watch every single screening.”
“I’m not quite sure whether you are complimenting me or insulting me.”
He feigns getting shot through the heart. “Waldorf, you wound me. I was merely complimenting your skill of feigning cold temperatures and tolerating boring socialites. You know that when you are in concern I only pay the highest of compliments.”
“Your glib tongue strikes again, Salvatore. You better rein it in or one day somebody might cut it off,” she scolds as she playfully tugs on his silk tie.
“I love it when you play rough,” he whispers as he leans in and kisses her thoroughly.
Her hands reach instinctively around his neck to draw him closer. If anyone asks she’ll just tell them that they were trying to stave off the cold.
xxx
The song ends and the memories fade to black.
“Happy birthday,” he whispers, kissing her once again softly on the cheek. He lingers for a beat too long to suit social etiquette, but she forgives him his slight.
She smiles at him one last time before pulling away to join the ranks of Serena and the rest of her little breakfast club. She belongs to them now and he doesn’t miss Young Bass’s hard glare in his direction.
Somehow they’ve both reach a place where even the happy memories leave a bittersweet aftertaste.
xxx
Serena drunkenly kisses her repeatedly goodbye as the limo stops in front of her house. Nate has to peel her off so that Blair can leave. Damon is already waiting on the steps as the rest of Blair’s extensive entourage says their final birthday wishes and adieus.
Chuck catches her wrist as she steps outside the car.
“I don’t like that he’s staying with you,” he whispers.
“It’s only for a little while. He’ll be gone soon.”
“I don’t like that he’s in love with you.”
“He’s not,” she answers glancing back at Damon who appears to be mesmerized by the top of his shoes.
“Deny all you want. I know that look.”
“What look?” she sighs exasperatedly.
“The same one that I give you when I think you’re not watching.”
“I’m always watching,” she replies.
“Then you’re not paying enough attention.”
With that he leans back inside the vehicle and shuts the door.
As the limo pulls away from the curb and blurring into the neon lights of the city, Damon appears by her side.
“You play a complicated game, Blair. Has my presence riled enough jealousy out of young Bass?”
“Not everything is a game, Damon. Some things are just complicated all on their own. I’m tired and I’m going to bed.”
“Bass doesn’t need to worry. I’ll be gone by tomorrow.”
She pauses, but doesn’t turn around to face him and instead continues unlocking the door.
“So try and fight those bitter tears knowing that you lucked out on an extension of my joyful presence,” he comments flippantly.
She turns the door knob, stepping past the threshold.
“If you’re leaving tomorrow then you’ll need your rest. So stop hovering outside and come in already,” she calls over her shoulder, leaving the door open for him.
xxx
True to his word Damon was gone the next morning. Only difference from yesterday was that she expected it. There will be no surprise birthday parties, no trips down memory lane or nostalgic ballroom dances. No more shared smiles that are lined with melancholy, no soft gestures hiding regret. Just a cold bedroom and a sense of emptiness as she resumed what has become her daily routine.
A/N: I'm having a lot of fun writing the flashback sequences of this story, but I don't necessary include them in chronological order so let me know if anything is confusing. =) This chapter ended up slightly more gloomy than I wanted, but hopefully future ones will show some happier times in Damon and Blair's history. That being said, I'm rather pleased with this chapter because it sets up quite a bit of their background which will build up future chapters. I hope you enjoyed reading and I love hearing you comments and feedback so leave me a message!