Gossip Girl FF: "Breaking the laws of classical aerodynamics" [Chuck/Dan, Ensemble; PG-13; AU]
Title: Breaking the laws of classical aerodynamics
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Characters/Pairings: Mainly Dan/Chuck; also Nate/Vanessa, Nate/Blair, Dan/Serena, possibly implied Serena/Blair.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 13,000 words
Disclaimer: Gossip Girl belongs to Josh Schwartz and the CW.
Spoilers: Very general for the show, but this is AU.
Warnings: Violence, angst, domestic terrorism, minors having offscreen sex.
Summary: The sign reads ‘Constance Billard and St Jude’s School for the Gifted’. Dan isn’t feeling particularly gifted today. Fusion with X-Men, i.e. Gossip Girl characters and X-Men setting, no crossover characters.
AN: For cliche_bingo, for the prompt "Fusion with another fandom".
The sign reads ‘Constance Billard and St Jude’s School for the Gifted’. Dan isn’t feeling particularly gifted today. Scared, yes. Intimidated, angry, humiliated by the urge to grab his father’s arm and beg him to take Dan home? All yes.
His Dad smiles at him and pushes Dan gently towards the gates. “You said you wanted to go in by yourself.”
“I did.”
“You can change your mind about that, you know. No loss of face.”
A black car pulls up and a guy about Dan’s age steps out of it. He pushes past them, muttering, “If you wouldn’t mind conducting this touching farewell out of the public thoroughfare?” He has a backpack worn over both shoulders, at odds with the elegant tailored suit. Dan watches him go.
Dan says, “I need to do this by myself. Unless…”
“What?”
“We could just go home,” Dan says, and hates himself for it.
His father frowns and leans down to look Dan in the eyes. “We agreed on this.”
“I know.”
“This is the best place for you. The best school. The safest- You can come home every other weekend if you want, but give the place a chance. Please?”
Dan sighs. “Yeah, okay.”
“Okay. So if you definitely don’t want parental escort, I’m going to go. All right?”
“All right.” He hugs his father, surprising them both with the force of it.
His Dad smiles and runs his hand over Dan’s hair. “Bye, kid. I’ll see you soon. Don’t run through any more walls.”
“I’ll try my best.”
“That’s all I ask.”
Rufus gets back into the car and waves once more before driving away.
Dan swallows, and walks into the school.
He’s pretty sure you could fit their entire apartment into the lobby of this place. He’d mentioned that to his Dad during the first round of interviews; Rufus had thought the loft would probably fit into one of the bathrooms here. Nothing but the best for his kid, even if it bankrupts him first.
Dan turns around to look at the lobby, almost immediately knocking into someone and falling over himself. He looks up to see her already on her feet, with a hand outstretched to pull him up. “You okay?” she asks.
She probably the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. She pushes her blonde hair away from her face and shakes her hand at him to take. He grabs it and stands, saying, “Thanks. And sorry about the whole…. Sorry.”
“No problem. Are you lost?”
“Umm… sort of. That obvious? Dan Humphrey. Is… me. Sorry. I guess I’m looking for reception?”
“Newbie, huh? Okay, let’s see if we can’t find out where you should be. Follow me, Dan Humphrey.”
A cough. Dan hadn’t noticed her companion before. She’s probably as pretty as Dan’s new friend, but looking at him like he crawled out from under a rock. She coughs again. “Serena? Don’t we have places to be?”
“Go on ahead, Blair. Tell them I’ll be there soon.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Blair walks away, tutting to herself.
Serena smiles. “Come on.” She tugs on the sleeve of his jacket to pull him along, dragging him through a doorway at the side.
There she presents him, with another smile, towards an older woman behind the desk. “Dan Humphrey,” she says. “New student.”
“Ah yes, of course. We were expecting you. Let me just see…” She looks at the computer screen for long enough that Dan starts to worry. He’s been having this exact recurring nightmare. Any minute now she’ll look up and say- “Serena, dear, would you mind?”
Dan blinks.
Serena reaches her hand over the desk to touch the computer. She hums under her breath and then says, “You really have to get these computers fixed. Here we go. Dan Humphrey. Hey, we’re in the same history class.” She looks at him. “I’m good with computers. Well, computer security, mostly. And networks. I’m good with them too.”
“Really. That’s great, because I’m very much not.”
She looks at him.
“I break things,” he explains. “I mean not as a- It’s more of a side-effect.”
He’s sure she’s going to ask and then she doesn’t. Maybe it really is different here; maybe no one cares.
Serena touches his arm. “See you, Dan.”
Dan spins around, but she’s already gone.
The secretary hands him some paperwork to sign, and a swipe key for the building. Then a room-key, and a class schedule, and he drops a few of them while trying to figure out where he’s supposed to be. It’s the middle of the semester - he’s the only new kid. God, he wants to go home.
The secretary smiles distractedly at him and waves him away.
When Dan gets out of the room, there’s a guy waiting for him. He’s a bit taller than Dan, more put together (but then everyone is): blue eyes, square jaw, shiny hair. He says, “Dan, right?”
“Yeah. Um.”
“Nathaniel Archibald,” the guy says. “Nate. Serena said you could probably do with a hand towards the boys’ dorms.”
Dan hadn’t even known that the Archibald heir was a- He knows the whole ‘school for the gifted’ thing is meant to be a cover, but it hasn’t worked for years. There’s always been the rumours, though the list of registered students, at least, remains a guarded secret. Still, he would have thought this one would have caused some more public notice. The news is running scare stories everyday.
Nate slides one of the papers from Dan’s grip, and starts walking. He looks at the page again. “Wow. Single room.”
“Is that good?”
“That depends on how much you- They’re smaller, on the ends of the corridors. It’s quiet though.” He smiles. “But you’re beside me and Chuck, so you can come visit if you get lonely.”
They brush past another student, nearly knocking him over. It’s the guy from before, outside the school. He sneers. “You’re just determined to ruin my day, aren’t you?”
Nate’s mouth twists. “Or not. How did you manage to piss Chuck off already?”
Dan shakes his head. “I didn’t-”
“Never mind,” Nate says. “He’ll get over it.” He looks unconvinced about that. “Anyway, this is you. Washroom’s the next door down, showers. Other way to the rec room, down the stairs. We’ve got TV, cable, X-Box. Dinner’s at six, past the rec room, follow the sound of breaking crockery. I’ll be in the rec room ‘til dinner if you finish unpacking.” He stops, to see if Dan’s got all that.
Dan nods, though he hasn’t, and Nate gives him a small smile and walks away.
Nate’s right - the room is small. But it’s not any smaller than his room at home, and most of his books are still back there, so there’s space. He doesn’t have much to unpack; he’s not planning to be here long. He just needs to get himself under control.
Dan doesn’t go to dinner, or to the rec room. He reads for a little while - to get lost the best way he knows how - and goes for a walk about eleven. There’s a kitchen which is apparently open to students. He gets coffee and a bagel, and finds where his morning’s classes will be.
He doesn’t sleep well, but at least he manages to stay in bed.
* * * *
Dan had kind of hoped history might be first thing. Or English, which wouldn’t lend the opportunity to see Serena, but is still his best subject. Instead it’s biology.
He gets partnered with Serena’s unhappy friend, who seems about as pleased with this as he is. Blair hands him the scalpel with distaste, and stands well back.
Dan’s not a big believer in dissection anyway, let alone first thing on a Monday morning. He mangles the unfortunate amphibian into approximate halves, and ekes out the tiny heart.
The professor orders them to swap places, so Dan passes Blair the scalpel. She bites her lip while she cuts.
He discovers a few things about Blair in the class. She’s really smart - she hates biology, but she’s passing well anyway. She’s an animal lover. She doesn’t like dissections either. And when she’s not paying enough attention her skin changes colour.
The scalpel slips, and her elbow jolts. Dan tries to catch her arm and it startles her. He thinks, for a moment, that they’ve spilt something: the back of her hand turns bruise-blue.
She seems him looking, snatches her hand away, and Dan watches the colour turn back to pale pink.
“What are you looking at?” she asks. She’s practically hissing at him.
“Nothing,” he says. He thinks about waving his hand through the desk, to see if that will make her feel better. He doesn’t.
“Good,” she says. The bell rings, and she throws her books into her bag. She leaves him to clear up the mess - that’s going to become a habit with them. Dan cleans the bench-tops, and tries to find his next class.
Nate is in the same Spanish class. He smiles at Dan and pulls out a chair next to his. Dan takes his seat slowly, still not convinced about what’s going on here.
But Nate remains friendly, and helpful, and thus is completely freaking Dan out. Though Dan is surprised to note that his own Spanish is a little better than Nate’s. He catches Nate trying to look up a word the professor had said, under the wrong letter.
Dan watches him for a moment or two and then silently takes the dictionary. He flicks to the right letter and points.
Nate grins at him. “Thanks. My Dad’s more of a south of France kind of guy - I get along better there.”
Dan smiles like he can empathise.
Serena finally surfaces in his history class. She pays almost no attention to the lesson - spending the whole time sending messages to Blair. But she does smile at Dan, and touches his shoulder as she walks past.
Dan still can’t quite muster up the nerve to try and say hi to her at lunch. He sits by himself, splitting his attention between an adequate lunch and the book he’s reading. She’s with Blair, and Nate is on the other side of the room with Chuck. Dan has chosen a table near the wall.
If he can say nothing else for the place, he is at least left alone. The school is small enough that the entire student body fits into one large dining room; it’s quiet and he can read in peace. He almost doesn’t notice the bell ring.
But the last class of the day is English. That, naturally, is the class he shares with Chuck.
Chuck is still staring at him as though he is personally offended by Dan’s very existence. He alternates between that and tapping away at his cell phone.
At sometime during the lesson, the professor notices Chuck’s lack of attention. “Mr Bass.”
Dan’s head jerks up. It could be a coincidence. But there can’t be that many Basses in New York who can afford to send their sons here. And Chuck doesn’t look like he’s on a scholarship place.
Chuck must catch the look. He flips a card onto Dan’s desk. It reads: ‘Charles Bass, Bass Industries’ and a business email address. Beneath that, Chuck has written, ‘Let’s keep our relationship at this level.’
Dan nods and puts his focus back onto the lesson. It’s only when he gets back to his room that he notices he’s absently tucked the card into his shirt pocket.
He takes it out, turns it between his fingers, and ends up putting it into his wallet instead. Dan’s always had a bad habit of hoarding things he might need one day.
* * * *
It goes like that for about a week. The classes vary, but the days all seem pretty much the same. He does well in English but is scraping by in maths (he’s always been scraping by in maths).
He gets his abilities tested, though they’d done it at interview already. In the end, he does walk through a wall, apologising to his dad in his head. He’s told they have individual and group sessions on alternating weeks. This is the individual, so he doesn’t see anyone else’s abilities that time.
The weekend comes eventually. Dan can’t go home - his Dad has gone with Jenny to see their mother. The school doesn’t exactly empty, but most of the people Dan knows are New Yorkers, so it seems that way.
Dan finds he likes the school better like this. It’s less sad being lonely in an empty building.
He goes for a walk in the grounds on Saturday evening. Above the high tree line there is a flash of movement.
Dan’s gone far enough away from the main school buildings, but he still doesn’t think they’re close enough to nature for anything like an eagle.
Grey-white wings and a person he realises, looking up now, shading his eyes against the moonlight. Perspective all off but he can see the human limbs.
Dan watches the twists and turns as the man - boy - flies above the trees. He doesn’t know how long he stands there.
He has always wanted to be a writer; he is a writer, he writes. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, trying to feel his way towards the words for this. The alien grace.
Dan’s barely had his eyes closed before he feels himself falling. He opens his eyes and he’s fifty feet up with fingers pressing bruises into his arms.
Chuck hisses into his ear, “What are you looking at, Humphrey?”
“Nothing.”
“Really?”
“I was out for a walk. I wasn’t- I wasn’t following you, or anything like that.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“You want to, maybe, put me down?”
“Maybe. Let me think about that. I could put you down, I suppose. Or I could just let go.”
Dan can’t help his gasp when Chuck adjusts his grip. Dan says, “It wouldn’t hurt. I could…” He phases his arm through Chuck’s hand, just to prove that he can. To prove that he isn’t scared to be hanging in the air holding onto just one of Chuck Bass’s wrists.
Chuck laughs, very softly. “So that’s what you can do. You’ve been the subject of a lot of curiosity, did you know? And after all that - not very interesting, is it? Hardly an offensive capability. Though I suppose it helps for those humiliating moments when you want the ground to open up and swallow you. You seem to have those quite often.”
“I don’t want offensive capability. I just want it to- And anyway, you’re hardly-”
“I could drop you,” Chuck says. “I don’t know if you could phase through the ground so quickly - do you?”
Dan doesn’t, to be truthful. He doesn’t experiment much with it. He had been all in favour of - was still all in favour of - mutant rights. But it’s an inconvenience he could have done without. It was easier to be political when it wasn’t personal. He feels his heart racing in his chest.
Chuck flies down, dropping Dan unceremoniously from six or eight feet above the ground. Enough to hurt when he doesn’t fall right, but he can pick himself up without problems.
Dan looks up, and Chuck is already disappearing into the darkness.
The rest of the school comes back on Sunday evening. Serena knocks on his door and drags him down the hallway to the rec room saying, “Enough hiding, Dan. Come and be friendly.” She puts him onto one of the couches, opposite her and near Nate and Blair, who are apparently dating. Across the room, Chuck glowers.
* * * *
Group sessions, it turns out, are a mixture of training and therapy. Professor Claremont starts them off by talking about her own first manifestation, and then opens it to the group. They’re divided roughly into age groups, so Dan knows everyone there. It doesn’t exactly encourage him to talk.
Serena is laughing, and telling them about the day she realised. “So I was fighting with Eric - that’s my brother - over the remote. He stole it so I couldn’t change the channel. Then I,” she holds her hand in the air, “whoosh. It changed all by itself. Eric’s never forgiven me for making him miss the Lost finale.”
Blair shakes her head when she’s asked. “No.”
Chuck taps his fingers impatiently during his turn. He rolls his head backwards, though the wings are bound behind him almost imperceptibly. Dan guesses that’s why he wears the coats and scarves - to hide where the lines of his clothes don’t sit right. Chuck says, “It was rather obvious, don’t you think?”
Nate is also uncharacteristically sullen. “Soccer. I was playing soccer.”
The bell rings before they get to Dan’s turn, and he’s thankful.
Professor Claremont claps her hands. “Practical session next time. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to try out those teamwork skills we’ve been working on.” She’s clearly an optimist.
The rec room’s empty - they’re free until dinner, but the rest of the school has one more class. Dan has a routine now. He sits near enough to Serena and the others that he’s not being antisocial, and then he puts his book on his lap in case he needs it. So he doesn’t look desperate if they’re not trying to include him today.
As it turns out, it doesn’t matter this time. “So,” Serena says, when she’s sitting down across from him. “You want to tell us how it was for you?”
“What?”
“The story, Dan. Rite of passage.”
“Nuh-uh. Not fair. Nobody else told theirs.”
“I told mine,” she says, “And we’ve all heard the rest. It’s a standard exercise, we do it every year.”
“Well I didn’t-”
“You heard mine. Chuck and Blair’s aren’t interesting.” Lie, Dan notes. “Nate froze a soccer pitch and now he can’t play anymore, boo hoo.”
“Why can’t you play?” Dan asks, leaning past Serena to look at Nate.
“Apparently,” Nate says, like it’s still a sore subject, “they think I’d cheat.”
“I’ll play you,” Dan offers. “We can both cheat.”
It’s only obvious that Nate has a polite smile and a real one when you see the real one. All his white teeth show. “Yeah? That’d be awesome.”
Dan sees Chuck making a face behind Nate, but ignores him.
“Anyway,” Serena says, “blah blah. Story.”
“It really wasn’t…” Dan pauses. “Chuck was kind of right, that’s all.”
The others turn to look at Chuck.
Chuck watches Dan, then drawls, “The ground opened up and swallowed you.”
“Well, it was a wall, but yeah. There was a girl, I was telling her- you know. And she was just looking at me. I couldn’t walk away from her, she was- And the next thing I know I’m on the other side of the wall.”
The corners of Serena’s mouth quirk up, but she pats his arm sympathetically. “Poor Dan. Was she worth it?”
He’s saved from answering by Blair. “That wasn’t recent, though, was it? Why didn’t you come to the school right away?”
“Aside from the money? It wasn’t that bad. It didn’t bother my Dad, we were going fine until…”
“What?” Nate asks.
This time Dan laughs. “I may have fallen through my bed into Mrs Gerber’s apartment.”
Serena’s hand flies to her mouth, not fast enough to hold in her little-girl laugh. “Was she-?”
“She’s like eighty, Serena. I landed on her bedroom floor. I could have given her a heart attack!”
Nate laughs; Blair smiles.
Serena asks, “And that’s when-?”
“That’s when Dad decided I should probably come find out how not to fall through things by accident.”
“You’ll learn more than that,” Chuck says. He makes it sound like a warning.
“I guess that’s the plan,” Dan says.
Nate coughs and hands Dan a controller. “X-Box?”
* * * *
Dan shares all his science classes with Blair. Last semester she had been paired up with the mysterious Georgina (“she’s in Europe now,” Blair says, “or prison.”). So now she has Dan.
Their relationship isn’t improving much. She still barely talks to him throughout the lesson - chemistry, today - and leaves him to clear up the mess.
His one-on-one session with Professor Claremont is after that, though there’s a forty-five minute break between. Dan turns up early, and sits on the bench outside.
Five minutes before the previous session should end, the door crashes open. Blair flings herself onto the bench beside Dan, and doesn’t see him. She’s crying and Dan, who has always had something of a white knight complex, thinks about comforting her.
There’s something flickering beneath her skin. Dan says, “I’ve never actually seen your ability.”
She looks at him sharply. She changes from the face outwards: Serena, Professor Claremont, Audrey Hepburn. Then she’s herself again, without the blue lights under her skin. “Satisfied?”
“Blair.”
She walks off in a hurry. Professor Claremont calls his name. “Daniel? Please tell me you’ve been practicing this week. I want you to be carrying other people through walls by the break.”
Dan wishes he had her confidence.
* * * *
The thing is, Dan really likes Nate. Not in a crazy, wants to steal him away from Chuck kind of way, but he does like him. He just can’t help resenting, a little, the ease with which Nate moves across the frozen field.
“Dan!” Nate calls. “I thought you were going to make this interesting for me!”
“I’m trying,” he bites out, before almost losing his footing again.
Nate has a sounder grip on his abilities. He pulls water easily from the air and the ground, and sends it sliding over the grass like a mirror.
Dan can just about manage to phase through the ice and to the ground, so he doesn’t fall. But he can’t do that and run at the same time. Professor Claremont will be pleased - it’s a better incentive to practice than anything she’s said so far. She’s sort of fixated on his inability to phase with another person. That, and the way he does still sometimes go through something without meaning to.
He forgets about the ball for a second, just focussing on getting across the field towards Nate.
Dan tumbles over when he gets near the end, and is trying to get back on level footing. Nate catches his arm and laughs. “You over-think it. You don’t need to be on the grass - just keep below the ice and try not to drop through the field entirely.”
“I’m going for fine control here.”
“That’s cool,” Nate says, “but you’re losing.” He turns sharply, sliding past Dan. He sends a spur of ice upwards and skates it, shooting above the field and landing near the goal. He slots the ball into the net and turns around with his arms upraised.
Nate frowns, with his gaze across the field, towards the school.
Dan turns. “Dad!” He gets across the field quicker than before and pulls up a few feet from his father. “Dad.”
His Dad looks at him for a moment. “Dan.”
“You’re early- I wasn’t expecting- Let me get my stuff. Is Jen okay? Are you cooking chilli?”
“Easy,” he says, with his hands on Dan’s shoulders. “Easy.”
Dan hugs him roughly. “I missed you. Hey.” He turns. “This is Nate. Sorry, Nate.”
“No problem,” Nate says. He’s walked across to meet them, and shakes Rufus’s hand. “Good to meet you, Mr Humphrey.”
“Rufus, please,” he says. “You’re already making me feel old.” He looks down at Dan affectionately. “How much were you losing by before your father stopped play?”
“A few,” Dan says.
Nate laughs, but says nothing.
“Maybe eight or so,” Dan amends.
“Yeah,” his Dad says. “Well, better luck next time I suppose. When you stop getting your foot stuck in the dirt - how many times have you been told to practice? Now, did you say you were ready?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ve been waiting all- I’m glad you’re here.”
His father’s hand settles solidly at the base of Dan’s shoulders. “Of course I’m here. Let’s grab your things and get this weekend started.” He looks at Nate. “Good to meet you.”
“And you,” Nate says. He walks Dan into the house, but doesn’t say much. Dan catches a few curious glances when he’s bringing his bag downstairs to the lobby. He ignores them; he’s used to it by now.
* * * *
Dan finds a certain irony in the way that he’s started to get on okay in the school with all the regular stuff, but can’t get the parts that he’s here for. His ordinary curriculum classes he can manage, but he’s getting no better at phasing.
They’re supposed to be working out some group tactics. Teamwork, that kind of thing. It never really works. Dan is trying to listen to Blair, because even though they don’t exactly get along, he thinks she’s the one making sense. No one else seems to be listening.
One of Blair and Serena’s hangers-on says, “Can’t Humphrey just walk us all through the wall?”
“Uh, no,” Dan says, “Because I’ve never phased with anyone else. I don’t know what would happen.”
“That’s just because you’ve never tried. You could just go for it, and then we’d be done with this stupid class and could finish for the day.”
“No,” Dan says, and then she pushes him. Later, maybe, he’ll worry how a girl who probably subsists on breadsticks knocked him into the wall.
But she knocks him against Chuck, and Dan’s reactions kick in before he can think. He phases both of them into the wall, where their momentum runs out. Halfway through the wall, with a person, and he’s never done this before.
Chuck isn’t talking, but Dan swears he feels a fast heartbeat beneath his, even though they’re both in phase from the ribs down.
“Ssh,” Dan says. He can’t think. He needs to move.
Professor Claremont opens the door into the room they’re halfway through. “Dan, everything’s okay. I need you to keep calm for me.”
“I don’t know what I-“
Serena, Blair and Nate come in. Their questions overlap: is he/are they/okay/what happened?
Dan’s arms are folded around Chuck, where he had tried to stop himself. He should have just phased through - why didn’t he go straight through? But he doesn’t like going through people - it’s never felt quite safe.
Chuck’s head is tucked against Dan’s neck. He speaks, finally, “Can you get us out?”
“I don’t-”
“Wasn’t really a question, Humphrey.”
“Ssh,” Dan says again. “I need to…” He keeps his arms tightly around Chuck, projecting one body as loudly as he can to whatever forces govern this. They slide the rest of the way through the wall and hit the floor.
Chuck detangles himself quickly. He leaves the classroom, muttering, “I’m going to kill her.”
Dan’s just relieved the homicidal impulses are being directed at someone else.
Professor Claremont dismisses the class but looks like she might want to talk to Dan. Dan slips through the floor, wondering when he memorised the plans of the school in such detail. It’s easy to get to the fields without being seen.
Serena finds him there. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Are you okay?”
“Hmm? Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Not even a little freaked out?” she asks.
“Well, at least now I know I can take someone else through a wall.” He pauses. “Yeah, a little bit freaked out.”
She sits close by him. Her hand settles onto his knee and her head against his shoulder. “You scared me. For Chuck too. You know he was nearly my step-brother?”
“No, you never said.”
“His Dad and my Mom. But after… anyway, she changed her mind. But he was nearly my brother. I guess we’re still…”
“You guys are all pretty close.”
“You too,” she says.
Dan laughs. “Not in the same way.”
“Not quite,” she says, “but we could…” She tilts his chin and kisses him.
* * * *
It changes less than he would have thought, whatever it is that he’s doing with Serena. Chuck doesn’t like him any more, and Nate doesn’t like him any less. Dan’s heard whisperings about Nate and Serena, way back when, but Nate just smirks and punches his arm, and still plays soccer with him.
Blair’s started to watch them like she thinks maybe she’s missing something, which Dan is enjoying, somewhat vindictively. She’s Nate’s girlfriend and she does make Dan laugh sometimes, but he still likes that there’s something about him that confuses her.
Other people start to talk to him as well: friends of Serena, who scare him, and friends of Nate who mostly don’t. They get five-a-side soccer going, and a semi-regular movie night.
It’s okay because school is a world of it’s own. Dan is pretty sure that if any of the others saw him in the real world - out in New York at the alternate weekends he spends with his father - they wouldn’t know what to say. Luckily none of them have any reason to go to Brooklyn.
But then Professor Byrne opens their biology lesson one morning by telling them they’re going on a field trip. He looks excited and doesn’t understand why none of his class feels the same way.
So they get into a bus and go to visit the Museum of Natural History. To Dan this seems very much like a disaster waiting to happen. But Professor Byrne, for obvious reasons, is interested in evolutionary biology. They’re sent out into the world with a questionnaire and told to be back at the café by lunch. Again, such a bad plan.
Serena is a more than adequate distraction from the quiz, and though they’re supposed to be in class pairs, Blair doesn’t seem to mind. She’s disappeared somewhere with Nate, presumably also failing to fill in their questionnaires.
Dan takes a half-hearted look at the sheet, trying to figure out which questions they actually need to be in the museum to answer. Most of them look like things they should know from class work, so they can do them on the bus back to school.
There’s another school there that day and Dan’s not so surprised when Chuck manages to insult one of them. He’s all the way across the exhibition hall, but Dan can hear the rising tenor of argument.
He’s halfway there, telling Serena to get Nate before they all get into trouble. He realises the other guys have figured out which school they belong to.
He’s a few metres away when he hears the first ever-hysterical jokes about homo superior.
And he’s just close enough that when the first punch is thrown, he can grab Chuck’s shoulder. He’s calculated on there being enough confusion that no one will be quite sure what happened. And to be fair, Chuck is the only one to notice that a punch just went through his face.
Nate turns up then, with Professor Byrne and some museum security.
Chuck says, clipped, “Don’t help, Humphrey.”
“You’re welcome,” Dan says, and shrugs.
Behind him he hears a familiar voice. “Strange company you keep nowadays, Dan.”
He spins around, “Vanessa?”
She smiles at him. “Hey.”
“Hey. What are you…?”
“Field trip. Same as you, looks like. I think you knocked out one of my classmates.”
“I didn’t-”
“You did something, though, right? He didn’t just miss your friend there.”
“Chuck’s not exactly my-”
Serena coughs. “Dan?” Her hand slips into his.
“Vanessa,” Dan says. “This is Serena.”
He sees Vanessa look quickly at their joined hands. She says, “Hey. Nice to meet you.”
Serena smiles. “You too. How do you know Dan?”
“We’ve been best friends since we were eight.” She looks Serena. “You go to his high school?”
“Yeah,” Serena says. “I do.”
Dan feels the need to intercede and point out the obvious. “We’re actually, you know, dating.” He turns his face to Serena, just to check that they’re agreed on that one. She opens her mouth to say something, but Professor Byrne interrupts.
They’re both dragged away, along with Chuck and the guys from the other school, to explain exactly what happened.
Dan waves ruefully at Vanessa, and is grateful to see Nate go over to say hello to her and make his apologies.
He never does quite manage to have the conversation with Serena; she leans against his shoulder all the way back to school on the bus, and he forgets why it was important.
* * * *
Nate drops down beside Dan with a heavy sigh.
“No soccer, I take it?” Dan asks. He’d pretty much given up on Nate showing fifteen minutes ago, so just his appearance is a bonus.
“No, man, we can play. I just need to-”
“It’s okay. You want to...?”
“Talk about it? It’s just Blair. And we’re… I don’t even know.”
Dan mmms sympathetically and waits for Nate to speak or not as he chooses. He’s not totally sure he wants to hear about Nate and Blair anyway, but it’s part of the deal. Friends listen to each other bitch about girls and their general incomprehensibility.
Nate says, “She won’t-” and yeah, Dan almost certainly doesn’t want to hear this. “No, hey,” Nate says. “Not that. You know she won’t even fall asleep round me?”
Dan looks at Nate in query.
“It’s her whole…” Nate trails off. “She can’t hold her concentration when she’s asleep. Hell, she can barely do it while she’s awake. When we were freshmen she had migraines all the time, trying to keep it up.”
Dan thinks of the way her skin slips to blue when she’s hurt or upset, and wonders how much effort goes into thinking a mask over yourself all of the time. He says, “She doesn’t want you to see?”
“I don’t think she wants anyone to see. It’s just Serena and that’s because they share a room. She got it from her mom, did you know that? I mean, the gene, not the same mutation. And her mom’s really good at hiding. So Blair thinks she-”
“Well, that’s a pretty common opinion. Especially when… I mean, Blair’s mom’s a designer, right? Public eye. Like…”
“The rest of us?” Nate smiles ruefully. “But Serena and me, it’s not anything obvious. And Serena’s got college recruiters all over her - government hacker types. They want her to fight the good fight, not that she cares.”
“Chuck, though,” Dan points out. “Not exactly easy to hide.”
“Not that it stops him trying.” Nate sighs. “And not that it helped.”
“What do you-?”
“Chuck’s dad… I was going to say disowned him but that’s not right. He’s got a credit card that’s pretty much unlimited and a trust fund that makes mine look small. His dad just doesn’t want to have to see him.”
“That’s…”
“Yeah. Well, it was Chuck’s mother who had the gene too. I’m not sure what she did.”
Dan has never considered that Chuck had a mother once. He doesn’t know what happened to her and it had not occurred to him to be curious. If pressed, he probably would have guessed a divorce. Chuck doesn’t talk about his father either, so it isn’t as if it was strange not to notice.
He knows something about everyone else’s living situation, but Chuck doesn’t divulge personal information casually.
Dan asks, “Have you seen the news lately?” Dan’s interest in the news varies from day to day, but recently he can’t ignore it. Their bubble only extends so far, and it’s impossible to deny that what was once a genetic anomaly is now an issue in national elections. Hiding might not be a choice for much longer.
Nate says, “Yeah, I’ve been watching. I just think…”
“What?”
“I think it would be easier if we didn’t try to keep it secret. If we were all just honest about it, what could they do?”
Dan laughs. He loves Nate, but he really can’t believe the naiveté sometimes. “I don’t think it’d be quite that simple,” he says, “now, do you want to play? I think I’m ready to take you this time.”
* * * *
There’s a call over the school announcement system: “Serena van der Woodsen to the principal’s office please. That’s Serena van der Woodsen to the principal’s office.”
They’re in gym, which is another class Dan’s not great in. He’s fit enough, but they’re not playing soccer in here. Dan and Nate are sparring with sticks - Dan is supposed to be learning some offensive skills, and Nate thinks it helps his fencing.
Blair chose throwing knives and is tossing them against the wall with great concentration. She varies between this and gymnastics, which she claims are complimentary skills, but Dan’s happier when she’s not playing with sharpened metal. Blair - like Dan - needs offensive capability, but she takes it much more seriously.
She stops throwing when Serena’s name is called, and picks up only a stuttering rhythm afterwards.
Classes are finished by the time Serena returns. They’re sitting in the rec room waiting for her; she comes back shaking. She says, “Eric.”
Dan wraps his arms around her and says, “What happened?”
“He tried-” She chokes on tears and stops talking.
Chuck leans forward. “What happened, Serena?”
“He manifested months ago and my mom tried to keep it- He tried to kill himself.”
Dan asks, “Is he okay- I mean, he’s going to be all right?”
“Yeah, he’s gone to the Genosha Clinic. They’ve got specialists there who-”
“I know it,” Dan says, “they did my tests, after I…”
“Yeah,” Serena says. “They do everyone’s tests. I think they even did my mom’s, back then.”
“Serena,” Chuck snaps, pulling her back to the topic. Dan remembers that, in another life, Eric would have been Chuck’s step-brother.
“Telepathy,” Serena says. “Probably telekinesis. Easy to hide. And not a bad skill for when the government comes to ask questions. But he doesn’t-”
The television is turned down low in the background, but they all hear the word ‘MRA’ and turn to look. The ticker-tape at the bottom of the screen reads: Mutant Registration Act to be reintroduced by Senator Jeremy Sanders. Sanders says, “For the safety of the American People, we need a systematic registration and monitoring system and, if necessary, an internment program.”
Serena says, “This is why he- Why doesn’t anyone stop them?”
“They’re trying, Serena,” Blair says.
“Not fast enough.”
She pulls herself out of Dan’s arms and heads out of the room. She leaves that evening to visit Eric at the clinic, and when she comes back her eyes are dry and she won’t talk about it. Dan sits beside her and feels powerless.
Link to part 2
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Characters/Pairings: Mainly Dan/Chuck; also Nate/Vanessa, Nate/Blair, Dan/Serena, possibly implied Serena/Blair.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 13,000 words
Disclaimer: Gossip Girl belongs to Josh Schwartz and the CW.
Spoilers: Very general for the show, but this is AU.
Warnings: Violence, angst, domestic terrorism, minors having offscreen sex.
Summary: The sign reads ‘Constance Billard and St Jude’s School for the Gifted’. Dan isn’t feeling particularly gifted today. Fusion with X-Men, i.e. Gossip Girl characters and X-Men setting, no crossover characters.
AN: For cliche_bingo, for the prompt "Fusion with another fandom".
The sign reads ‘Constance Billard and St Jude’s School for the Gifted’. Dan isn’t feeling particularly gifted today. Scared, yes. Intimidated, angry, humiliated by the urge to grab his father’s arm and beg him to take Dan home? All yes.
His Dad smiles at him and pushes Dan gently towards the gates. “You said you wanted to go in by yourself.”
“I did.”
“You can change your mind about that, you know. No loss of face.”
A black car pulls up and a guy about Dan’s age steps out of it. He pushes past them, muttering, “If you wouldn’t mind conducting this touching farewell out of the public thoroughfare?” He has a backpack worn over both shoulders, at odds with the elegant tailored suit. Dan watches him go.
Dan says, “I need to do this by myself. Unless…”
“What?”
“We could just go home,” Dan says, and hates himself for it.
His father frowns and leans down to look Dan in the eyes. “We agreed on this.”
“I know.”
“This is the best place for you. The best school. The safest- You can come home every other weekend if you want, but give the place a chance. Please?”
Dan sighs. “Yeah, okay.”
“Okay. So if you definitely don’t want parental escort, I’m going to go. All right?”
“All right.” He hugs his father, surprising them both with the force of it.
His Dad smiles and runs his hand over Dan’s hair. “Bye, kid. I’ll see you soon. Don’t run through any more walls.”
“I’ll try my best.”
“That’s all I ask.”
Rufus gets back into the car and waves once more before driving away.
Dan swallows, and walks into the school.
He’s pretty sure you could fit their entire apartment into the lobby of this place. He’d mentioned that to his Dad during the first round of interviews; Rufus had thought the loft would probably fit into one of the bathrooms here. Nothing but the best for his kid, even if it bankrupts him first.
Dan turns around to look at the lobby, almost immediately knocking into someone and falling over himself. He looks up to see her already on her feet, with a hand outstretched to pull him up. “You okay?” she asks.
She probably the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. She pushes her blonde hair away from her face and shakes her hand at him to take. He grabs it and stands, saying, “Thanks. And sorry about the whole…. Sorry.”
“No problem. Are you lost?”
“Umm… sort of. That obvious? Dan Humphrey. Is… me. Sorry. I guess I’m looking for reception?”
“Newbie, huh? Okay, let’s see if we can’t find out where you should be. Follow me, Dan Humphrey.”
A cough. Dan hadn’t noticed her companion before. She’s probably as pretty as Dan’s new friend, but looking at him like he crawled out from under a rock. She coughs again. “Serena? Don’t we have places to be?”
“Go on ahead, Blair. Tell them I’ll be there soon.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Blair walks away, tutting to herself.
Serena smiles. “Come on.” She tugs on the sleeve of his jacket to pull him along, dragging him through a doorway at the side.
There she presents him, with another smile, towards an older woman behind the desk. “Dan Humphrey,” she says. “New student.”
“Ah yes, of course. We were expecting you. Let me just see…” She looks at the computer screen for long enough that Dan starts to worry. He’s been having this exact recurring nightmare. Any minute now she’ll look up and say- “Serena, dear, would you mind?”
Dan blinks.
Serena reaches her hand over the desk to touch the computer. She hums under her breath and then says, “You really have to get these computers fixed. Here we go. Dan Humphrey. Hey, we’re in the same history class.” She looks at him. “I’m good with computers. Well, computer security, mostly. And networks. I’m good with them too.”
“Really. That’s great, because I’m very much not.”
She looks at him.
“I break things,” he explains. “I mean not as a- It’s more of a side-effect.”
He’s sure she’s going to ask and then she doesn’t. Maybe it really is different here; maybe no one cares.
Serena touches his arm. “See you, Dan.”
Dan spins around, but she’s already gone.
The secretary hands him some paperwork to sign, and a swipe key for the building. Then a room-key, and a class schedule, and he drops a few of them while trying to figure out where he’s supposed to be. It’s the middle of the semester - he’s the only new kid. God, he wants to go home.
The secretary smiles distractedly at him and waves him away.
When Dan gets out of the room, there’s a guy waiting for him. He’s a bit taller than Dan, more put together (but then everyone is): blue eyes, square jaw, shiny hair. He says, “Dan, right?”
“Yeah. Um.”
“Nathaniel Archibald,” the guy says. “Nate. Serena said you could probably do with a hand towards the boys’ dorms.”
Dan hadn’t even known that the Archibald heir was a- He knows the whole ‘school for the gifted’ thing is meant to be a cover, but it hasn’t worked for years. There’s always been the rumours, though the list of registered students, at least, remains a guarded secret. Still, he would have thought this one would have caused some more public notice. The news is running scare stories everyday.
Nate slides one of the papers from Dan’s grip, and starts walking. He looks at the page again. “Wow. Single room.”
“Is that good?”
“That depends on how much you- They’re smaller, on the ends of the corridors. It’s quiet though.” He smiles. “But you’re beside me and Chuck, so you can come visit if you get lonely.”
They brush past another student, nearly knocking him over. It’s the guy from before, outside the school. He sneers. “You’re just determined to ruin my day, aren’t you?”
Nate’s mouth twists. “Or not. How did you manage to piss Chuck off already?”
Dan shakes his head. “I didn’t-”
“Never mind,” Nate says. “He’ll get over it.” He looks unconvinced about that. “Anyway, this is you. Washroom’s the next door down, showers. Other way to the rec room, down the stairs. We’ve got TV, cable, X-Box. Dinner’s at six, past the rec room, follow the sound of breaking crockery. I’ll be in the rec room ‘til dinner if you finish unpacking.” He stops, to see if Dan’s got all that.
Dan nods, though he hasn’t, and Nate gives him a small smile and walks away.
Nate’s right - the room is small. But it’s not any smaller than his room at home, and most of his books are still back there, so there’s space. He doesn’t have much to unpack; he’s not planning to be here long. He just needs to get himself under control.
Dan doesn’t go to dinner, or to the rec room. He reads for a little while - to get lost the best way he knows how - and goes for a walk about eleven. There’s a kitchen which is apparently open to students. He gets coffee and a bagel, and finds where his morning’s classes will be.
He doesn’t sleep well, but at least he manages to stay in bed.
* * * *
Dan had kind of hoped history might be first thing. Or English, which wouldn’t lend the opportunity to see Serena, but is still his best subject. Instead it’s biology.
He gets partnered with Serena’s unhappy friend, who seems about as pleased with this as he is. Blair hands him the scalpel with distaste, and stands well back.
Dan’s not a big believer in dissection anyway, let alone first thing on a Monday morning. He mangles the unfortunate amphibian into approximate halves, and ekes out the tiny heart.
The professor orders them to swap places, so Dan passes Blair the scalpel. She bites her lip while she cuts.
He discovers a few things about Blair in the class. She’s really smart - she hates biology, but she’s passing well anyway. She’s an animal lover. She doesn’t like dissections either. And when she’s not paying enough attention her skin changes colour.
The scalpel slips, and her elbow jolts. Dan tries to catch her arm and it startles her. He thinks, for a moment, that they’ve spilt something: the back of her hand turns bruise-blue.
She seems him looking, snatches her hand away, and Dan watches the colour turn back to pale pink.
“What are you looking at?” she asks. She’s practically hissing at him.
“Nothing,” he says. He thinks about waving his hand through the desk, to see if that will make her feel better. He doesn’t.
“Good,” she says. The bell rings, and she throws her books into her bag. She leaves him to clear up the mess - that’s going to become a habit with them. Dan cleans the bench-tops, and tries to find his next class.
Nate is in the same Spanish class. He smiles at Dan and pulls out a chair next to his. Dan takes his seat slowly, still not convinced about what’s going on here.
But Nate remains friendly, and helpful, and thus is completely freaking Dan out. Though Dan is surprised to note that his own Spanish is a little better than Nate’s. He catches Nate trying to look up a word the professor had said, under the wrong letter.
Dan watches him for a moment or two and then silently takes the dictionary. He flicks to the right letter and points.
Nate grins at him. “Thanks. My Dad’s more of a south of France kind of guy - I get along better there.”
Dan smiles like he can empathise.
Serena finally surfaces in his history class. She pays almost no attention to the lesson - spending the whole time sending messages to Blair. But she does smile at Dan, and touches his shoulder as she walks past.
Dan still can’t quite muster up the nerve to try and say hi to her at lunch. He sits by himself, splitting his attention between an adequate lunch and the book he’s reading. She’s with Blair, and Nate is on the other side of the room with Chuck. Dan has chosen a table near the wall.
If he can say nothing else for the place, he is at least left alone. The school is small enough that the entire student body fits into one large dining room; it’s quiet and he can read in peace. He almost doesn’t notice the bell ring.
But the last class of the day is English. That, naturally, is the class he shares with Chuck.
Chuck is still staring at him as though he is personally offended by Dan’s very existence. He alternates between that and tapping away at his cell phone.
At sometime during the lesson, the professor notices Chuck’s lack of attention. “Mr Bass.”
Dan’s head jerks up. It could be a coincidence. But there can’t be that many Basses in New York who can afford to send their sons here. And Chuck doesn’t look like he’s on a scholarship place.
Chuck must catch the look. He flips a card onto Dan’s desk. It reads: ‘Charles Bass, Bass Industries’ and a business email address. Beneath that, Chuck has written, ‘Let’s keep our relationship at this level.’
Dan nods and puts his focus back onto the lesson. It’s only when he gets back to his room that he notices he’s absently tucked the card into his shirt pocket.
He takes it out, turns it between his fingers, and ends up putting it into his wallet instead. Dan’s always had a bad habit of hoarding things he might need one day.
* * * *
It goes like that for about a week. The classes vary, but the days all seem pretty much the same. He does well in English but is scraping by in maths (he’s always been scraping by in maths).
He gets his abilities tested, though they’d done it at interview already. In the end, he does walk through a wall, apologising to his dad in his head. He’s told they have individual and group sessions on alternating weeks. This is the individual, so he doesn’t see anyone else’s abilities that time.
The weekend comes eventually. Dan can’t go home - his Dad has gone with Jenny to see their mother. The school doesn’t exactly empty, but most of the people Dan knows are New Yorkers, so it seems that way.
Dan finds he likes the school better like this. It’s less sad being lonely in an empty building.
He goes for a walk in the grounds on Saturday evening. Above the high tree line there is a flash of movement.
Dan’s gone far enough away from the main school buildings, but he still doesn’t think they’re close enough to nature for anything like an eagle.
Grey-white wings and a person he realises, looking up now, shading his eyes against the moonlight. Perspective all off but he can see the human limbs.
Dan watches the twists and turns as the man - boy - flies above the trees. He doesn’t know how long he stands there.
He has always wanted to be a writer; he is a writer, he writes. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, trying to feel his way towards the words for this. The alien grace.
Dan’s barely had his eyes closed before he feels himself falling. He opens his eyes and he’s fifty feet up with fingers pressing bruises into his arms.
Chuck hisses into his ear, “What are you looking at, Humphrey?”
“Nothing.”
“Really?”
“I was out for a walk. I wasn’t- I wasn’t following you, or anything like that.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“You want to, maybe, put me down?”
“Maybe. Let me think about that. I could put you down, I suppose. Or I could just let go.”
Dan can’t help his gasp when Chuck adjusts his grip. Dan says, “It wouldn’t hurt. I could…” He phases his arm through Chuck’s hand, just to prove that he can. To prove that he isn’t scared to be hanging in the air holding onto just one of Chuck Bass’s wrists.
Chuck laughs, very softly. “So that’s what you can do. You’ve been the subject of a lot of curiosity, did you know? And after all that - not very interesting, is it? Hardly an offensive capability. Though I suppose it helps for those humiliating moments when you want the ground to open up and swallow you. You seem to have those quite often.”
“I don’t want offensive capability. I just want it to- And anyway, you’re hardly-”
“I could drop you,” Chuck says. “I don’t know if you could phase through the ground so quickly - do you?”
Dan doesn’t, to be truthful. He doesn’t experiment much with it. He had been all in favour of - was still all in favour of - mutant rights. But it’s an inconvenience he could have done without. It was easier to be political when it wasn’t personal. He feels his heart racing in his chest.
Chuck flies down, dropping Dan unceremoniously from six or eight feet above the ground. Enough to hurt when he doesn’t fall right, but he can pick himself up without problems.
Dan looks up, and Chuck is already disappearing into the darkness.
The rest of the school comes back on Sunday evening. Serena knocks on his door and drags him down the hallway to the rec room saying, “Enough hiding, Dan. Come and be friendly.” She puts him onto one of the couches, opposite her and near Nate and Blair, who are apparently dating. Across the room, Chuck glowers.
* * * *
Group sessions, it turns out, are a mixture of training and therapy. Professor Claremont starts them off by talking about her own first manifestation, and then opens it to the group. They’re divided roughly into age groups, so Dan knows everyone there. It doesn’t exactly encourage him to talk.
Serena is laughing, and telling them about the day she realised. “So I was fighting with Eric - that’s my brother - over the remote. He stole it so I couldn’t change the channel. Then I,” she holds her hand in the air, “whoosh. It changed all by itself. Eric’s never forgiven me for making him miss the Lost finale.”
Blair shakes her head when she’s asked. “No.”
Chuck taps his fingers impatiently during his turn. He rolls his head backwards, though the wings are bound behind him almost imperceptibly. Dan guesses that’s why he wears the coats and scarves - to hide where the lines of his clothes don’t sit right. Chuck says, “It was rather obvious, don’t you think?”
Nate is also uncharacteristically sullen. “Soccer. I was playing soccer.”
The bell rings before they get to Dan’s turn, and he’s thankful.
Professor Claremont claps her hands. “Practical session next time. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to try out those teamwork skills we’ve been working on.” She’s clearly an optimist.
The rec room’s empty - they’re free until dinner, but the rest of the school has one more class. Dan has a routine now. He sits near enough to Serena and the others that he’s not being antisocial, and then he puts his book on his lap in case he needs it. So he doesn’t look desperate if they’re not trying to include him today.
As it turns out, it doesn’t matter this time. “So,” Serena says, when she’s sitting down across from him. “You want to tell us how it was for you?”
“What?”
“The story, Dan. Rite of passage.”
“Nuh-uh. Not fair. Nobody else told theirs.”
“I told mine,” she says, “And we’ve all heard the rest. It’s a standard exercise, we do it every year.”
“Well I didn’t-”
“You heard mine. Chuck and Blair’s aren’t interesting.” Lie, Dan notes. “Nate froze a soccer pitch and now he can’t play anymore, boo hoo.”
“Why can’t you play?” Dan asks, leaning past Serena to look at Nate.
“Apparently,” Nate says, like it’s still a sore subject, “they think I’d cheat.”
“I’ll play you,” Dan offers. “We can both cheat.”
It’s only obvious that Nate has a polite smile and a real one when you see the real one. All his white teeth show. “Yeah? That’d be awesome.”
Dan sees Chuck making a face behind Nate, but ignores him.
“Anyway,” Serena says, “blah blah. Story.”
“It really wasn’t…” Dan pauses. “Chuck was kind of right, that’s all.”
The others turn to look at Chuck.
Chuck watches Dan, then drawls, “The ground opened up and swallowed you.”
“Well, it was a wall, but yeah. There was a girl, I was telling her- you know. And she was just looking at me. I couldn’t walk away from her, she was- And the next thing I know I’m on the other side of the wall.”
The corners of Serena’s mouth quirk up, but she pats his arm sympathetically. “Poor Dan. Was she worth it?”
He’s saved from answering by Blair. “That wasn’t recent, though, was it? Why didn’t you come to the school right away?”
“Aside from the money? It wasn’t that bad. It didn’t bother my Dad, we were going fine until…”
“What?” Nate asks.
This time Dan laughs. “I may have fallen through my bed into Mrs Gerber’s apartment.”
Serena’s hand flies to her mouth, not fast enough to hold in her little-girl laugh. “Was she-?”
“She’s like eighty, Serena. I landed on her bedroom floor. I could have given her a heart attack!”
Nate laughs; Blair smiles.
Serena asks, “And that’s when-?”
“That’s when Dad decided I should probably come find out how not to fall through things by accident.”
“You’ll learn more than that,” Chuck says. He makes it sound like a warning.
“I guess that’s the plan,” Dan says.
Nate coughs and hands Dan a controller. “X-Box?”
* * * *
Dan shares all his science classes with Blair. Last semester she had been paired up with the mysterious Georgina (“she’s in Europe now,” Blair says, “or prison.”). So now she has Dan.
Their relationship isn’t improving much. She still barely talks to him throughout the lesson - chemistry, today - and leaves him to clear up the mess.
His one-on-one session with Professor Claremont is after that, though there’s a forty-five minute break between. Dan turns up early, and sits on the bench outside.
Five minutes before the previous session should end, the door crashes open. Blair flings herself onto the bench beside Dan, and doesn’t see him. She’s crying and Dan, who has always had something of a white knight complex, thinks about comforting her.
There’s something flickering beneath her skin. Dan says, “I’ve never actually seen your ability.”
She looks at him sharply. She changes from the face outwards: Serena, Professor Claremont, Audrey Hepburn. Then she’s herself again, without the blue lights under her skin. “Satisfied?”
“Blair.”
She walks off in a hurry. Professor Claremont calls his name. “Daniel? Please tell me you’ve been practicing this week. I want you to be carrying other people through walls by the break.”
Dan wishes he had her confidence.
* * * *
The thing is, Dan really likes Nate. Not in a crazy, wants to steal him away from Chuck kind of way, but he does like him. He just can’t help resenting, a little, the ease with which Nate moves across the frozen field.
“Dan!” Nate calls. “I thought you were going to make this interesting for me!”
“I’m trying,” he bites out, before almost losing his footing again.
Nate has a sounder grip on his abilities. He pulls water easily from the air and the ground, and sends it sliding over the grass like a mirror.
Dan can just about manage to phase through the ice and to the ground, so he doesn’t fall. But he can’t do that and run at the same time. Professor Claremont will be pleased - it’s a better incentive to practice than anything she’s said so far. She’s sort of fixated on his inability to phase with another person. That, and the way he does still sometimes go through something without meaning to.
He forgets about the ball for a second, just focussing on getting across the field towards Nate.
Dan tumbles over when he gets near the end, and is trying to get back on level footing. Nate catches his arm and laughs. “You over-think it. You don’t need to be on the grass - just keep below the ice and try not to drop through the field entirely.”
“I’m going for fine control here.”
“That’s cool,” Nate says, “but you’re losing.” He turns sharply, sliding past Dan. He sends a spur of ice upwards and skates it, shooting above the field and landing near the goal. He slots the ball into the net and turns around with his arms upraised.
Nate frowns, with his gaze across the field, towards the school.
Dan turns. “Dad!” He gets across the field quicker than before and pulls up a few feet from his father. “Dad.”
His Dad looks at him for a moment. “Dan.”
“You’re early- I wasn’t expecting- Let me get my stuff. Is Jen okay? Are you cooking chilli?”
“Easy,” he says, with his hands on Dan’s shoulders. “Easy.”
Dan hugs him roughly. “I missed you. Hey.” He turns. “This is Nate. Sorry, Nate.”
“No problem,” Nate says. He’s walked across to meet them, and shakes Rufus’s hand. “Good to meet you, Mr Humphrey.”
“Rufus, please,” he says. “You’re already making me feel old.” He looks down at Dan affectionately. “How much were you losing by before your father stopped play?”
“A few,” Dan says.
Nate laughs, but says nothing.
“Maybe eight or so,” Dan amends.
“Yeah,” his Dad says. “Well, better luck next time I suppose. When you stop getting your foot stuck in the dirt - how many times have you been told to practice? Now, did you say you were ready?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ve been waiting all- I’m glad you’re here.”
His father’s hand settles solidly at the base of Dan’s shoulders. “Of course I’m here. Let’s grab your things and get this weekend started.” He looks at Nate. “Good to meet you.”
“And you,” Nate says. He walks Dan into the house, but doesn’t say much. Dan catches a few curious glances when he’s bringing his bag downstairs to the lobby. He ignores them; he’s used to it by now.
* * * *
Dan finds a certain irony in the way that he’s started to get on okay in the school with all the regular stuff, but can’t get the parts that he’s here for. His ordinary curriculum classes he can manage, but he’s getting no better at phasing.
They’re supposed to be working out some group tactics. Teamwork, that kind of thing. It never really works. Dan is trying to listen to Blair, because even though they don’t exactly get along, he thinks she’s the one making sense. No one else seems to be listening.
One of Blair and Serena’s hangers-on says, “Can’t Humphrey just walk us all through the wall?”
“Uh, no,” Dan says, “Because I’ve never phased with anyone else. I don’t know what would happen.”
“That’s just because you’ve never tried. You could just go for it, and then we’d be done with this stupid class and could finish for the day.”
“No,” Dan says, and then she pushes him. Later, maybe, he’ll worry how a girl who probably subsists on breadsticks knocked him into the wall.
But she knocks him against Chuck, and Dan’s reactions kick in before he can think. He phases both of them into the wall, where their momentum runs out. Halfway through the wall, with a person, and he’s never done this before.
Chuck isn’t talking, but Dan swears he feels a fast heartbeat beneath his, even though they’re both in phase from the ribs down.
“Ssh,” Dan says. He can’t think. He needs to move.
Professor Claremont opens the door into the room they’re halfway through. “Dan, everything’s okay. I need you to keep calm for me.”
“I don’t know what I-“
Serena, Blair and Nate come in. Their questions overlap: is he/are they/okay/what happened?
Dan’s arms are folded around Chuck, where he had tried to stop himself. He should have just phased through - why didn’t he go straight through? But he doesn’t like going through people - it’s never felt quite safe.
Chuck’s head is tucked against Dan’s neck. He speaks, finally, “Can you get us out?”
“I don’t-”
“Wasn’t really a question, Humphrey.”
“Ssh,” Dan says again. “I need to…” He keeps his arms tightly around Chuck, projecting one body as loudly as he can to whatever forces govern this. They slide the rest of the way through the wall and hit the floor.
Chuck detangles himself quickly. He leaves the classroom, muttering, “I’m going to kill her.”
Dan’s just relieved the homicidal impulses are being directed at someone else.
Professor Claremont dismisses the class but looks like she might want to talk to Dan. Dan slips through the floor, wondering when he memorised the plans of the school in such detail. It’s easy to get to the fields without being seen.
Serena finds him there. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Are you okay?”
“Hmm? Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Not even a little freaked out?” she asks.
“Well, at least now I know I can take someone else through a wall.” He pauses. “Yeah, a little bit freaked out.”
She sits close by him. Her hand settles onto his knee and her head against his shoulder. “You scared me. For Chuck too. You know he was nearly my step-brother?”
“No, you never said.”
“His Dad and my Mom. But after… anyway, she changed her mind. But he was nearly my brother. I guess we’re still…”
“You guys are all pretty close.”
“You too,” she says.
Dan laughs. “Not in the same way.”
“Not quite,” she says, “but we could…” She tilts his chin and kisses him.
* * * *
It changes less than he would have thought, whatever it is that he’s doing with Serena. Chuck doesn’t like him any more, and Nate doesn’t like him any less. Dan’s heard whisperings about Nate and Serena, way back when, but Nate just smirks and punches his arm, and still plays soccer with him.
Blair’s started to watch them like she thinks maybe she’s missing something, which Dan is enjoying, somewhat vindictively. She’s Nate’s girlfriend and she does make Dan laugh sometimes, but he still likes that there’s something about him that confuses her.
Other people start to talk to him as well: friends of Serena, who scare him, and friends of Nate who mostly don’t. They get five-a-side soccer going, and a semi-regular movie night.
It’s okay because school is a world of it’s own. Dan is pretty sure that if any of the others saw him in the real world - out in New York at the alternate weekends he spends with his father - they wouldn’t know what to say. Luckily none of them have any reason to go to Brooklyn.
But then Professor Byrne opens their biology lesson one morning by telling them they’re going on a field trip. He looks excited and doesn’t understand why none of his class feels the same way.
So they get into a bus and go to visit the Museum of Natural History. To Dan this seems very much like a disaster waiting to happen. But Professor Byrne, for obvious reasons, is interested in evolutionary biology. They’re sent out into the world with a questionnaire and told to be back at the café by lunch. Again, such a bad plan.
Serena is a more than adequate distraction from the quiz, and though they’re supposed to be in class pairs, Blair doesn’t seem to mind. She’s disappeared somewhere with Nate, presumably also failing to fill in their questionnaires.
Dan takes a half-hearted look at the sheet, trying to figure out which questions they actually need to be in the museum to answer. Most of them look like things they should know from class work, so they can do them on the bus back to school.
There’s another school there that day and Dan’s not so surprised when Chuck manages to insult one of them. He’s all the way across the exhibition hall, but Dan can hear the rising tenor of argument.
He’s halfway there, telling Serena to get Nate before they all get into trouble. He realises the other guys have figured out which school they belong to.
He’s a few metres away when he hears the first ever-hysterical jokes about homo superior.
And he’s just close enough that when the first punch is thrown, he can grab Chuck’s shoulder. He’s calculated on there being enough confusion that no one will be quite sure what happened. And to be fair, Chuck is the only one to notice that a punch just went through his face.
Nate turns up then, with Professor Byrne and some museum security.
Chuck says, clipped, “Don’t help, Humphrey.”
“You’re welcome,” Dan says, and shrugs.
Behind him he hears a familiar voice. “Strange company you keep nowadays, Dan.”
He spins around, “Vanessa?”
She smiles at him. “Hey.”
“Hey. What are you…?”
“Field trip. Same as you, looks like. I think you knocked out one of my classmates.”
“I didn’t-”
“You did something, though, right? He didn’t just miss your friend there.”
“Chuck’s not exactly my-”
Serena coughs. “Dan?” Her hand slips into his.
“Vanessa,” Dan says. “This is Serena.”
He sees Vanessa look quickly at their joined hands. She says, “Hey. Nice to meet you.”
Serena smiles. “You too. How do you know Dan?”
“We’ve been best friends since we were eight.” She looks Serena. “You go to his high school?”
“Yeah,” Serena says. “I do.”
Dan feels the need to intercede and point out the obvious. “We’re actually, you know, dating.” He turns his face to Serena, just to check that they’re agreed on that one. She opens her mouth to say something, but Professor Byrne interrupts.
They’re both dragged away, along with Chuck and the guys from the other school, to explain exactly what happened.
Dan waves ruefully at Vanessa, and is grateful to see Nate go over to say hello to her and make his apologies.
He never does quite manage to have the conversation with Serena; she leans against his shoulder all the way back to school on the bus, and he forgets why it was important.
* * * *
Nate drops down beside Dan with a heavy sigh.
“No soccer, I take it?” Dan asks. He’d pretty much given up on Nate showing fifteen minutes ago, so just his appearance is a bonus.
“No, man, we can play. I just need to-”
“It’s okay. You want to...?”
“Talk about it? It’s just Blair. And we’re… I don’t even know.”
Dan mmms sympathetically and waits for Nate to speak or not as he chooses. He’s not totally sure he wants to hear about Nate and Blair anyway, but it’s part of the deal. Friends listen to each other bitch about girls and their general incomprehensibility.
Nate says, “She won’t-” and yeah, Dan almost certainly doesn’t want to hear this. “No, hey,” Nate says. “Not that. You know she won’t even fall asleep round me?”
Dan looks at Nate in query.
“It’s her whole…” Nate trails off. “She can’t hold her concentration when she’s asleep. Hell, she can barely do it while she’s awake. When we were freshmen she had migraines all the time, trying to keep it up.”
Dan thinks of the way her skin slips to blue when she’s hurt or upset, and wonders how much effort goes into thinking a mask over yourself all of the time. He says, “She doesn’t want you to see?”
“I don’t think she wants anyone to see. It’s just Serena and that’s because they share a room. She got it from her mom, did you know that? I mean, the gene, not the same mutation. And her mom’s really good at hiding. So Blair thinks she-”
“Well, that’s a pretty common opinion. Especially when… I mean, Blair’s mom’s a designer, right? Public eye. Like…”
“The rest of us?” Nate smiles ruefully. “But Serena and me, it’s not anything obvious. And Serena’s got college recruiters all over her - government hacker types. They want her to fight the good fight, not that she cares.”
“Chuck, though,” Dan points out. “Not exactly easy to hide.”
“Not that it stops him trying.” Nate sighs. “And not that it helped.”
“What do you-?”
“Chuck’s dad… I was going to say disowned him but that’s not right. He’s got a credit card that’s pretty much unlimited and a trust fund that makes mine look small. His dad just doesn’t want to have to see him.”
“That’s…”
“Yeah. Well, it was Chuck’s mother who had the gene too. I’m not sure what she did.”
Dan has never considered that Chuck had a mother once. He doesn’t know what happened to her and it had not occurred to him to be curious. If pressed, he probably would have guessed a divorce. Chuck doesn’t talk about his father either, so it isn’t as if it was strange not to notice.
He knows something about everyone else’s living situation, but Chuck doesn’t divulge personal information casually.
Dan asks, “Have you seen the news lately?” Dan’s interest in the news varies from day to day, but recently he can’t ignore it. Their bubble only extends so far, and it’s impossible to deny that what was once a genetic anomaly is now an issue in national elections. Hiding might not be a choice for much longer.
Nate says, “Yeah, I’ve been watching. I just think…”
“What?”
“I think it would be easier if we didn’t try to keep it secret. If we were all just honest about it, what could they do?”
Dan laughs. He loves Nate, but he really can’t believe the naiveté sometimes. “I don’t think it’d be quite that simple,” he says, “now, do you want to play? I think I’m ready to take you this time.”
* * * *
There’s a call over the school announcement system: “Serena van der Woodsen to the principal’s office please. That’s Serena van der Woodsen to the principal’s office.”
They’re in gym, which is another class Dan’s not great in. He’s fit enough, but they’re not playing soccer in here. Dan and Nate are sparring with sticks - Dan is supposed to be learning some offensive skills, and Nate thinks it helps his fencing.
Blair chose throwing knives and is tossing them against the wall with great concentration. She varies between this and gymnastics, which she claims are complimentary skills, but Dan’s happier when she’s not playing with sharpened metal. Blair - like Dan - needs offensive capability, but she takes it much more seriously.
She stops throwing when Serena’s name is called, and picks up only a stuttering rhythm afterwards.
Classes are finished by the time Serena returns. They’re sitting in the rec room waiting for her; she comes back shaking. She says, “Eric.”
Dan wraps his arms around her and says, “What happened?”
“He tried-” She chokes on tears and stops talking.
Chuck leans forward. “What happened, Serena?”
“He manifested months ago and my mom tried to keep it- He tried to kill himself.”
Dan asks, “Is he okay- I mean, he’s going to be all right?”
“Yeah, he’s gone to the Genosha Clinic. They’ve got specialists there who-”
“I know it,” Dan says, “they did my tests, after I…”
“Yeah,” Serena says. “They do everyone’s tests. I think they even did my mom’s, back then.”
“Serena,” Chuck snaps, pulling her back to the topic. Dan remembers that, in another life, Eric would have been Chuck’s step-brother.
“Telepathy,” Serena says. “Probably telekinesis. Easy to hide. And not a bad skill for when the government comes to ask questions. But he doesn’t-”
The television is turned down low in the background, but they all hear the word ‘MRA’ and turn to look. The ticker-tape at the bottom of the screen reads: Mutant Registration Act to be reintroduced by Senator Jeremy Sanders. Sanders says, “For the safety of the American People, we need a systematic registration and monitoring system and, if necessary, an internment program.”
Serena says, “This is why he- Why doesn’t anyone stop them?”
“They’re trying, Serena,” Blair says.
“Not fast enough.”
She pulls herself out of Dan’s arms and heads out of the room. She leaves that evening to visit Eric at the clinic, and when she comes back her eyes are dry and she won’t talk about it. Dan sits beside her and feels powerless.
Link to part 2