fic: dair, gg, let the right one in
Title: Let the Right One In
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Pairing: Dan/Blair
Disclaimer: Gossip Girl, and Dan/Blair, belong to Josh Schwartz. I am only responsible for their (fan)fictional corruption.
Rating: PG
Teaser: The longer she stays away, the more fond his tone becomes. She doesn't like it at all.
Warnings: None (although I wish I could say this had spoilers)
A/N: I still bleed D/B. Summer fic.
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She only laughs on Wednesday nights, when she calls long distance and just his "hello" sounds grateful. She never says hello back, just launches into a diatribe about anything and everything. His selection of movies this week, whatever bit of crazy everyone in New York is getting up to without her.
"Really? Charlie isn't Charlie?"
"Yeah, who saw that coming?"
"I should have guessed. I knew there was no way on earth another Blue Blood could have found you irresistible. I mean, even one who spent her formative years in Florida."
"You kissed me."
"Once," she concedes, because that's all she's willing to give him.
"Twice actually"
"Well," she argues, "Surely one of those times didn't count."
She only relaxes when he groans in defeat, when his mood goes from thrilled to frustrated. It's not her job to make him happy. She likes keeping him on his toes.
"How's Serena?" she asks, the question inevitable, forcing him to admit he still doesn't know. "You'll have to face her again before it's over with."
He reminds her, unnecessarily - "She doesn't want to have anything to do with me. I know you missed it but - she made it perfectly clear. She said it in front of a large room of people. Loudly."
Dan's book is all Gossip Girl can talk about. Blair deleted the link to that page on her laptop when she left New York. She's heard enough about it though, even against her will. Dorota is always attempting to quote pages. "What could you have said that was so horrible? Really, Humphrey? Am I going to have to actually read this book?"
He sounds tired. He always sounds tired these days. "I really wish you wouldn't."
She's half tempted to, just because of that. She won't though because she's irrationally afraid it's the only thing that could change her mind.
She's sure, for reasons unknown, that it might change her life.
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She only feels like herself when he's complaining about her part in the corruption of everything he holds dear.
"Now I'll never be able to watch My Fair Lady again."
"What? You mean you never wondered why two middle aged, unmarried, men might know so much about women's fashion?"
"It's like I don't even know you."
Her sigh is twice as long as his, "Eliza should have chosen Freddy."
His laugh is incredulous. "You women never go with the nice guy for long."
"Louis is nice. Louis dotes."
He's always so unimpressed with anyone she decides to give her time. "He's royalty. I'm pretty sure he has people who do his doting for him. Maybe a whole cabinet of people."
She only feels happy when she's telling him that jealousy is a characteristic unbecoming a gentleman.
"You're actually allowing me the title of gentleman?"
She stopped fighting the smiles he somehow manages to pull out of her, when he could no longer witness them - when "Dan and Blair", two nouns separated by a conjunction, became disembodied voices spanning distances too great to traverse at the drop of a hat, "Why not? I'm feeling generous today."
He yawns and it's her signal to let him go, to say something dismissive and pretend like it was her idea.
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She only cries when she gets really lonely.
When he doesn't answer on the first ring and the thought occurs to her that someday soon he might not answer at all.
"Blair?"
"----"
She hangs up before he can hear the tears in her exhale, the careful way she breaths in like she might choke.
He always calls her back after a few minutes, keeps calling back until she's pulled it together and can pretend none of it ever happened.
"Blair?"
"Daniel, why are you calling me? Did you miss "Time Zone Day" in first grade, did the subway hit a homeless man on the way into the city and you only got to school in time for nap?"
His silence isn't loaded. It's patient.
She still waits too long, until the moment stretches and gets awkward, until anything she could say would sound more serious than it probably should. "I'm tired."
Her confession doesn't seem to move him. Instead of accepting her reluctance to admit anything more real than complete exhaustion, he challenges her to give up.
To give in.
"Come home, Blair. This is where you belong."
She only knows she's wrong when he's right.
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She only ever feels like herself when they are knee-deep in romantic comedies, musicals, or black and white horror.
They watch all her favorites, everything Audrey ever did and then everything she didn't. Funny Girl and Oklahoma, South Pacific and A Chorus Line. Vertigo and Rear Window and The Birds.
"I've changed your ring-tone. It's now the violin score from the shower scene in Psycho." She tells him, apropos of nothing.
"Is that so?"
The longer she stays away, the more fond his tone becomes. "It is."
She doesn't like it at all.
He sounds like he might love her when he asks, "Is that an homage to my taste in women?"
They both recognize the dig, she isn't so much oblivious as willfully obtuse. She usually ignores direct baiting, any carefully selected words that seem remotely like a trap, but the longer she's gone the more she wants to be caught, "Well you have to admit, Humphrey - it's pretty hit or miss. The half that aren't completely out of your league are certifiable and dangerous. One wonders if you might have a few bats loose in the Belfry."
Where she fits in is up for debate.
"I wouldn't hurt a fly."
She only ever feels grounded when he acts like she knows what he's talking about, like the understanding is mutual.
"If I came back," she doesn't use the word "home" on purpose, "Everyone would think it was for Chuck. Chuck would think it was for Chuck."
"It wouldn't be." If his voice doesn't rise an octave at the end, it's probably just as deliberate. Another thing they have in common is the bad habit of thinking strength of will can turn questions into statements, transform uncertainities into absolute truths. "The only person who needs to know your motives is you."
She's more than a little scared at what she's starting to realize those motives are.
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She only knows what she wants when she's finally standing in front of his stupid loft in Brooklyn, hand raised to knock like he was raised well enough to lock the door.
She only barrels in without dirtying her knuckles - because she's spent a lifetime perfecting false bravado.
"You are such a Care-bear. Tell me again how you've never been robbed."
He's sitting on his sofa and his head whips around so fast she wouldn't be surprised if he develops whiplash.
His sputter, God help her, is cute. "There's nothing worth stealing."
He's on his feet in a heartbeat, rushing towards her like they are long lost friends - or reunited lovers.
"A killer wouldn't want anything, except your pitiful excuse for a life."
She only remembers how good it feels to be near him, when his arms circle hers and he dares to squeeze as hard as he can.
"You are crushing me," she whispers. It comes out as observation, as far from a warning as any four words could get. Even coming from her - directed at him.
She only realizes she's hugging back when she can't stop.
She read his book on the plane, couldn't put it down, and there are so many questions she's not ready to hear the answers to. She's not prepared for "why now?" or "how is this going to end?" Her mind swirls enough, just trying to figure out who is going to make the first move.
She wants to kiss him, pull him in like the first time and skip all this hesitation. She doesn't. If he's dumb enough to think that she's here to tell him "no," then he hasn't been paying attention.
She only feels "yes" with everything she has, only feels alive now that she's shoving him away- pushing her way into his kitchen and taking a seat on a stool like it's the throne she left behind.
She missed him.
She missed this.
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He kisses her, eventually.
After dinner and a movie and same old same old. After more shared smiles and shoulders, and quiet moments that should be awkward. Moments that aren't awkward because he doesn't expect anything out of her except exactly what she was going to give anyway.
She sighs into the feel of his hand on her cheek and his lips equally gentle. It only takes a second, a second to thread her fingers through his hair, a second to realize that she doesn't care why she needs him or why he wants her.
She does. He does. Nothing can stop them.
He's short of breath when he pulls back like he's waiting for her to tell him it was all a big mistake and she doesn't say a word. She only follows, leans forward and grabs the fabric of his t-shirt to keep him where he has to stay.
Her fist twists in the fabric and her head is full of every good thing he claimed to feel for her under the ruse of fiction, positively brimming with beautiful words that she never really believed anyone would ever use to describe her.
She only accepts that, in a world of heartbreak and misery, he's how she's going to make it day to day - when she realizes that, for the first time in her life, she can return the favor.
~~~end
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