the beat goes on
Title: the beat goes on
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Dan/Blair, some Chuck/Blair (minor Nate/Vanessa, Serena, Scott VanderHump)
Rating:Benign (I never know what to put here)
Words: 1,300
Authors Note: Sorry if it is uneven or rushed. I’m a stickler for deadlines. For prv_3_13_15 challenge #1 @ prettyscrewed. Prompt was: There is no one thing that’s true. It’s all true- Ernest Hemingway. Not sure why it sounds like a film noir or Whodunit. Shamefully little N/V, I tried.
Warning: Unbetta'd, mistakes all mine.
Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick, he says because he still can’t believe they do this. This. He’s too old for it and he’s seen half the world, written most of it down in the pages of The New Republic (literature in a hurry, he convinces himself while cashing his checks) and whatever plan their hatching, mischief their making, problem their solving, he wasn’t a part of their group then and he’d prefer to be left out of it now.
“I’m sure that just charms them all in, Boston? Is it? nowadays,” Chuck sneers. “Poor man’s New York, Humphrey, I’m sure you fit right in.” Give the man a top hat and a cackle and Dan wouldn’t put tying a damsel to the train tracks past him. If only to keep her put…of course.
“Lay off, Chuck, this is just as much about him,” Nate steps further into the room in his defense, Vanessa’s ringed hand slipping easily out of his. “He’s got a stake in this too.”
They’re wearing gowns and tuxes and hearken an era where girls were dames and guys were gents and he feels self conscious now in his pleated slacks and pressed shirt. He mindlessly pokes a finger through the hole in his front pocket. He’s quite sure there are muffin crumbs in the other.
“Dan please, stay,” Serena touches his shoulder and its beginning to feel like an intervention. He’s never been much of a drinker, but a scotch would do nice, and writers are notorious alcoholics and womanizers anyway, he may as well start succeeding at one or the other.
His eyes catch the promise of something in the corner and they follow the ghost of a dress as it slips past the doors into the kitchen while the others are thick in conversation. He smiles a little at his ability to make her flee. Just your body odor Humphrey, he hears in his head and wonders if she still sounds the same in person.
Serena’s mouth is moving, spilling stories of someone who’s done something to upset someone else, who has done the gasp! unthinkable. Twisting plot, convoluted scheme and perhaps this could make a thrilling mystery novel someday. He bookmarks the thought but moves on.
“Restrooms?” he interrupts. “Loo, water closet, bathroom, you know, place where one…relieves themself?”
~
He turns left instead of right and discreetly follows the whip of a woman. Falls down the rabbit hole because he knows enougha about the movies to know the femme fatale always did it in the end. Her bodice tugs at her breast as she reaches for the top shelf with the wine glasses.
“Turn around, Cabbage Patch. You came because this is about Serena,” she states simply without so much as peering at him.
Blair's chestnut waves fall over her bare shoulders and back.
“Nope,” he shakes his head once and smiles because like it or not, he’s happy to see her.
“Vanessa then,” she rolls her eyes as her heels slip out of their pumps when she rises higher on the balls of her feet. So simple, so sensual, Dan is aroused.
“I…uh, heard your estate had a lovely, garden. Yup...garden” he moves her aside and catches the remaining stem easily between his fingers, “'Horticulturist Today' says four outta five stars.”
“It’s night", and the joke is that no such magazine exists, "But I’m sure Fred can give you a tour of the grounds in the morning. Are you looking for yard work? Though I have to warn you graduate-age lawn mowers are a rarity and I’d feel odd tipping you in quarters. Though…", she unapologetically rakes him over with her eyes, " not that odd.” She smiles smugly.
He nudges her.
She nudges back. “Glad to see you’re still taking great pride in your appearance,” her eyes soften as does her plump lipped smile.
“You look… beautiful,” and a hand goes through his hair.
“I have a mirror, Humphrey; tell me something I don’t know.”
~
He coerces her into the cellar by threatening to scream out loud that she shops discount. She hesitates when they get to the door, calling his bluff, he threatens to put it in print. He just wants to talk after all. She complies but announces on the third step down that she knows he would never do it. Journalistic integrity and all that nonsense, while your traipsing through jungles and being ransomed by guerilla groups.
“My last piece was on white collar crimes, I was in Texas.”
She shudders, “Worse.”
She fills him in on the latest caper though if it were up to her, she overemphasizes, they would never have called him. He’s still glad she did. He keeps smiling and stuttering over inane plot point as if he’s seen her naked before and it's all he can see now, she doesn’t blush because she’s not the least bit ashamed of what they did.
2011 @ NYU
There was not a place Dan could run that Scott would not find him. He was everywhere and anywhere and so effortlessly better than Dan at everything; charismatic, bright, less judgmental, more coherent. He was a better Dan than Dan. Rufus, Vanessa, Serena, like stacks of dominoes, fall to his charm, he understands Jenny better these days, she has to learn and grow, Dan, let her go.
But she’s my sister!
Mine! Too!
And then a Blair tail spinning from the aftermath of a Chuck who is afraid of each new step they take, fixes him with a stare at the bar that says I know that look. And, I see you’ve met your Serena, she whispers on her way out. He follows.
She wants it to be hot and passionate but he still hasn’t shaken those vestiges of romanticism because, it’s the only way he knows how to make love. He kiss too tenderly, holds her too closely, whispers her name, and looks her in the eye, in the end. So she doesn’t scramble out of bed. She doesn’t throw things or insults. She says sorry. And asks, if they could, maybe...be friends?
She falls into his bed twice more and Dan asks if love is an excuse for bad behavior. No, I’m really curious; getting scared is Chuck's excuse for indiscretions, so love must mean he gets away with murder.
She slaps him. Just once.
Now
She calms a cowlick. He rolls his head and calls her doll. She fixes his collar. He asks if there is anything in his teeth, too.
“So, did you, uh, take it to the tribunal when you decided not to come away with me?” he points overhead and asks plainly because that is the point, right? Why he braved the rain in the middle of the night, playing gumshoe becoming, at the very least, an accessory after the fact.
She rolls her eyes again. “Just when you were being tolerable, you go and Humphrey it up.”
“I guess I can’t help it. Especially not if the verb is, is my name, right?”
She glares at him, gathering fabric in her hands as she makes to stand up.
But her voice is softer than her actions. “I’m no saint, Humpty, but I do bear some responsibility. This is the most he’s ever given, who am I to throw that away? This is… his best.”
His head falls forward and he tries not to do that thing he does where he points out the millions of ways in which what she’s saying is wrong, or judges her for accepting that logic as fact, for thinking somehow it’s the best she deserves. He fixes a smile when he lifts to meet her eye and only asks what he can do. As long as she promises there will be no digging. He may be dressed for it but he wasn’t built for it… and he’d hate to ruin her garden.
She asks why he would help. He says I never know when I may need it.
“Chuck knows where to bury the bodies but you… under penalty of death you wouldn’t tell the police where to dig, on any of us.” He strokes her face, “You’re an honorable thief Blair.”
“That’s the kindest thing you’ve ever said.”
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Dan/Blair, some Chuck/Blair (minor Nate/Vanessa, Serena, Scott VanderHump)
Rating:Benign (I never know what to put here)
Words: 1,300
Authors Note: Sorry if it is uneven or rushed. I’m a stickler for deadlines. For prv_3_13_15 challenge #1 @ prettyscrewed. Prompt was: There is no one thing that’s true. It’s all true- Ernest Hemingway. Not sure why it sounds like a film noir or Whodunit. Shamefully little N/V, I tried.
Warning: Unbetta'd, mistakes all mine.
Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick, he says because he still can’t believe they do this. This. He’s too old for it and he’s seen half the world, written most of it down in the pages of The New Republic (literature in a hurry, he convinces himself while cashing his checks) and whatever plan their hatching, mischief their making, problem their solving, he wasn’t a part of their group then and he’d prefer to be left out of it now.
“I’m sure that just charms them all in, Boston? Is it? nowadays,” Chuck sneers. “Poor man’s New York, Humphrey, I’m sure you fit right in.” Give the man a top hat and a cackle and Dan wouldn’t put tying a damsel to the train tracks past him. If only to keep her put…of course.
“Lay off, Chuck, this is just as much about him,” Nate steps further into the room in his defense, Vanessa’s ringed hand slipping easily out of his. “He’s got a stake in this too.”
They’re wearing gowns and tuxes and hearken an era where girls were dames and guys were gents and he feels self conscious now in his pleated slacks and pressed shirt. He mindlessly pokes a finger through the hole in his front pocket. He’s quite sure there are muffin crumbs in the other.
“Dan please, stay,” Serena touches his shoulder and its beginning to feel like an intervention. He’s never been much of a drinker, but a scotch would do nice, and writers are notorious alcoholics and womanizers anyway, he may as well start succeeding at one or the other.
His eyes catch the promise of something in the corner and they follow the ghost of a dress as it slips past the doors into the kitchen while the others are thick in conversation. He smiles a little at his ability to make her flee. Just your body odor Humphrey, he hears in his head and wonders if she still sounds the same in person.
Serena’s mouth is moving, spilling stories of someone who’s done something to upset someone else, who has done the gasp! unthinkable. Twisting plot, convoluted scheme and perhaps this could make a thrilling mystery novel someday. He bookmarks the thought but moves on.
“Restrooms?” he interrupts. “Loo, water closet, bathroom, you know, place where one…relieves themself?”
~
He turns left instead of right and discreetly follows the whip of a woman. Falls down the rabbit hole because he knows enougha about the movies to know the femme fatale always did it in the end. Her bodice tugs at her breast as she reaches for the top shelf with the wine glasses.
“Turn around, Cabbage Patch. You came because this is about Serena,” she states simply without so much as peering at him.
Blair's chestnut waves fall over her bare shoulders and back.
“Nope,” he shakes his head once and smiles because like it or not, he’s happy to see her.
“Vanessa then,” she rolls her eyes as her heels slip out of their pumps when she rises higher on the balls of her feet. So simple, so sensual, Dan is aroused.
“I…uh, heard your estate had a lovely, garden. Yup...garden” he moves her aside and catches the remaining stem easily between his fingers, “'Horticulturist Today' says four outta five stars.”
“It’s night", and the joke is that no such magazine exists, "But I’m sure Fred can give you a tour of the grounds in the morning. Are you looking for yard work? Though I have to warn you graduate-age lawn mowers are a rarity and I’d feel odd tipping you in quarters. Though…", she unapologetically rakes him over with her eyes, " not that odd.” She smiles smugly.
He nudges her.
She nudges back. “Glad to see you’re still taking great pride in your appearance,” her eyes soften as does her plump lipped smile.
“You look… beautiful,” and a hand goes through his hair.
“I have a mirror, Humphrey; tell me something I don’t know.”
~
He coerces her into the cellar by threatening to scream out loud that she shops discount. She hesitates when they get to the door, calling his bluff, he threatens to put it in print. He just wants to talk after all. She complies but announces on the third step down that she knows he would never do it. Journalistic integrity and all that nonsense, while your traipsing through jungles and being ransomed by guerilla groups.
“My last piece was on white collar crimes, I was in Texas.”
She shudders, “Worse.”
She fills him in on the latest caper though if it were up to her, she overemphasizes, they would never have called him. He’s still glad she did. He keeps smiling and stuttering over inane plot point as if he’s seen her naked before and it's all he can see now, she doesn’t blush because she’s not the least bit ashamed of what they did.
2011 @ NYU
There was not a place Dan could run that Scott would not find him. He was everywhere and anywhere and so effortlessly better than Dan at everything; charismatic, bright, less judgmental, more coherent. He was a better Dan than Dan. Rufus, Vanessa, Serena, like stacks of dominoes, fall to his charm, he understands Jenny better these days, she has to learn and grow, Dan, let her go.
But she’s my sister!
Mine! Too!
And then a Blair tail spinning from the aftermath of a Chuck who is afraid of each new step they take, fixes him with a stare at the bar that says I know that look. And, I see you’ve met your Serena, she whispers on her way out. He follows.
She wants it to be hot and passionate but he still hasn’t shaken those vestiges of romanticism because, it’s the only way he knows how to make love. He kiss too tenderly, holds her too closely, whispers her name, and looks her in the eye, in the end. So she doesn’t scramble out of bed. She doesn’t throw things or insults. She says sorry. And asks, if they could, maybe...be friends?
She falls into his bed twice more and Dan asks if love is an excuse for bad behavior. No, I’m really curious; getting scared is Chuck's excuse for indiscretions, so love must mean he gets away with murder.
She slaps him. Just once.
Now
She calms a cowlick. He rolls his head and calls her doll. She fixes his collar. He asks if there is anything in his teeth, too.
“So, did you, uh, take it to the tribunal when you decided not to come away with me?” he points overhead and asks plainly because that is the point, right? Why he braved the rain in the middle of the night, playing gumshoe becoming, at the very least, an accessory after the fact.
She rolls her eyes again. “Just when you were being tolerable, you go and Humphrey it up.”
“I guess I can’t help it. Especially not if the verb is, is my name, right?”
She glares at him, gathering fabric in her hands as she makes to stand up.
But her voice is softer than her actions. “I’m no saint, Humpty, but I do bear some responsibility. This is the most he’s ever given, who am I to throw that away? This is… his best.”
His head falls forward and he tries not to do that thing he does where he points out the millions of ways in which what she’s saying is wrong, or judges her for accepting that logic as fact, for thinking somehow it’s the best she deserves. He fixes a smile when he lifts to meet her eye and only asks what he can do. As long as she promises there will be no digging. He may be dressed for it but he wasn’t built for it… and he’d hate to ruin her garden.
She asks why he would help. He says I never know when I may need it.
“Chuck knows where to bury the bodies but you… under penalty of death you wouldn’t tell the police where to dig, on any of us.” He strokes her face, “You’re an honorable thief Blair.”
“That’s the kindest thing you’ve ever said.”