Fic : Do Right, But Not Right Now (Gossip Girl, Chuck/Dan)
Oh holy merciful etc., this is finally done.
Title: Do Right, But Not Right Now
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Pairing: Dan/Chuck
Spoilers/Continuity: Set between "The Serena Also Rises" and "New Haven Can Wait," with specific references to both. Actually remains consistent with subsequent episodes.
Rating: NC-17 for explicit sex, drug use, and language.
Warning: Both principal characters are high school seniors, age seventeen and a half.
Summary: How to seduce Chuck Bass, raise your GPA, and become a writer in under five days.
Word Count: about 6,800.
Disclaimer: Gossip Girl is the intellectual property of College Hill, 17th Street, Alloy, and Warner Bros; it is based on the novels by Cecily Von Ziegesar. This original work of fan fiction is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this Livejournal post. This story is a labor of love, not money, so it's protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976. Fool, look in thy heart and write.
Notes: Thanks to callmesandy for the beta and to thistle90 for audiencing and encouragement. The title is from "Look at Miss Ohio" by Gillian Welch.
The mind is its own place and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same
And what I should be...
- Satan, Paradise Lost (John Milton)
*
Dan is at Chuck's door saying he wants to get out of his comfort zone, and Chuck is asking if Dan is gay, and Dan isn't quite saying no, because how do you know something like that until you - until he is letting Chuck pull him inside and take him out of his clothes. This is a skill in which Chuck has considerable experience, apparently, obviously. Dan is naked with his back against uncomfortable antique wall moldings, and Chuck is giving him chapter one of things outside his comfort zone, which involves a lot of Chuck's tongue. A tongue is a tongue if Dan closes his eyes, hands are hands, a hand on his dick will make him hard, any hand, Chuck's hand. Chuck is moving south, would be the euphemism, leading with his hands, which are not any hands but specifically Chuck Bass hands and then specifically Chuck Bass tongue on Dan's dick. Dan has believed he has been with girls who knew how to go down, but he has believed so wrong. "Condom?" he has the presence of mind to say, because he got an A in sex ed and Chuck is the sexual equivalent of a subway rat. Once when Dan was a little kid he fed chips to a subway rat and his mom yelled at him, and he thinks he might be doing the same thing now, but maybe his mom shouldn't have walked out, then, right?
Chuck has a condom astonishingly nearby and is gracious about using it, is graceful with his tongue which is a blessing. The moldings dig into Dan's back, and he gets hard into Chuck's mouth, and he wants to grab Chuck's hair and pull Chuck's face deeper onto his dick, and he wants his brain to stop saying Chuck's, Chuck's, Chuck's name over and over and did he also say that out loud? Chuck. Is making him come.
Horizons expanded, Dan searches for his clothes, but Chuck says, "Hey, not so fast," and by the time Dan can react to that and turn around, he is looking right at Chuck's dick. Dan is pretty sure he's seen an erect penis before, like, one that was not his and not on the internet, but he didn't see it on purpose, not that he was seeing Chuck's on purpose either. But Chuck is making sure he sees, making an accusation: Chuck is hard, and it's all Dan's fault. Dan sinks to his knees, victim to another Chuck Bass scheme. Chuck presses his finger to Dan's lips and for a second Dan thinks he's off the hook, but it turns out Chuck is another sex ed graduate. Dan considers his position; certainly, Dan has received blow jobs, and he is now speedily compiling every bad experience and trying to avoid them. This is what he's got: don't put the whole thing in his mouth at once, and don't bite. This might be more than he can handle, but he absolutely cannot pussy out if he plans to survive high school. No, that is an understatement. Chuck Bass could destroy the whole rest of his life and possibly follow him into Hell.
The condom is minty fresh, and that is not a flavor Dan particularly wants to associate with Chuck's penis, but there are worse possibilities. Once Dan gets going, it isn't that bad. Repetitive, and it wears out his jaw, although he guesses that part would get better with practice. Practice, imagine practicing this, imagine having a guy he wanted to keep satisfied so he would have to practice, not that he would ever want that, not that he is into that at all. But he can see how a person could be, with Chuck making soft noises that might actually be beyond his control, as if anything were beyond Chuck Bass's control. Chuck getting off forcefully and almost making Dan break both of his newly-discovered blow job rules at once, that is part of Chuck's plan. Chuck gasping for air and sliding down the antique molding to kiss the top of Dan's head like he had a great time and still respects Dan and everything, all of that is in the master plan.
Chuck says, "What are you doing? Put your clothes on," and the next thing Dan knows he's in a club in, oh, somewhere below 14th. He lost track after his seventh or eighth swig of unidentified alcohol in the limo, but the point is he is drunk and on drugs and then he is in jail and Chuck might be weeping, might be bullshitting him, and then he is alone on the street in the middle of the night with no shoes on.
*
Dan thinks that's the end of his Chuck Bass affair, because what else is there to think, but the next afternoon Chuck shows up at the loft, demanding, "Do you realize how long it takes to get to Brooklyn?"
"The bridges get pretty backed up," Dan says. "You should take the subway when you turn around and go back home."
"We have a chem test tomorrow. Be my study buddy?" Chuck makes study buddy sound like a relationship involving bullwhips and Crisco.
Dan shouts over his shoulder, "Dad, Chuck's here to study for our chem test."
"Your dad's here?"
"He lives here." Dan drops an arm from the doorframe to let Chuck pass. "Maybe he'll bring us some Capri Sun and granola bars."
For thirteen and a half minutes, they actually study chemistry, the kind that involves balancing equations and reviewing lab logs. Dan wonders if the Chuck Bass plan specifies 13.5 minutes of sitting cross-legged on Dan's bed looking smug while pretending to memorize the properties of acids. "So," Dan says. "Are we studying or are we 'studying'?"
"By 'studying,' do you mean 'fucking'?" Chuck practically yells the last word.
"What I mean is, I know why you're here. You're here because I am the only person, the only person, which is ridiculous but nonetheless, who can get you off other than Blair Waldorf, to your knowledge and the knowledge of anyone else in the greater St. Jude's community, and saying you need me might be putting to fine a point on it, but I... there are services that only Blair and I can provide, and I'm guessing she, she isn't exactly returning your phone calls." Dan pauses for oxygen. "Also, I want my shoes back."
"I gave your shoes to the homeless."
"So the rest is -"
"Accurate." Chuck pushes Dan back onto the bed, and that is all he needs to do to make Dan ragingly, mortifyingly hard. Chuck slides up Dan's body, right into first base, and kissing Chuck is so disturbingly hot that Dan's worried he's going to come in his pants. To distract himself, or because he's curious, or because it seems like a logical thing to do if the sex is going to happen, Dan reaches for Chuck's dick. He can feel its rigid outline and it's good to know he's not alone in this. "Mm," Chuck says, and while Dan is feeling pleased with himself, Chuck wraps his arms around Dan's chest and butt and rolls him over. Chuck's ability to get people out of their clothes is really a rare talent, like, Dan hasn't really mastered bra clasps, not that it matters in this case, but the point is Dan has no idea how his pants got away from him so fast.
Chuck is on top of Dan, kissing the back of Dan's neck, which is not strictly necessary although tough to complain about. He is making a trail down Dan's back with his lips and now he is kissing Dan's butt, which is pretty much what he should be doing, albeit figuratively. It is at this point that Dan figures out what Chuck is planning, and he freezes, clenches his fists, tries to shake Chuck off of him but realizes all he really has to do is ask Chuck not to. "I'm not sure I --"
Chuck runs a finger in the cleft of Dan's ass, which makes Dan shiver. Maybe it's supposed to feel that good; it would explain why anyone would do this ever. Chuck says, "Out of your comfort zone again?"
"Way out."
"I'll be gentle," Chuck says. He's playing with Dan's butt, moving that finger around, obviously aware of how it feels when someone does that. "Can't have you screaming bloody murder with your dad home."
"Can't have you hurting me, because then I'd never let you touch me again, and then you'd be stuck alone in your room jerking off to your fond memories of Blair's headbands."
Chuck growls - actually makes a growling noise like a tiger and is that supposed to be sexy? - and rises off of Dan, making Dan wonder if he's driven Chuck away, although he can't imagine it's that easy. But Dan can see out of the corner of his eye that Chuck is looking in his bag for something, hopefully condoms or a mild sedative. Regardless, a sign that Chuck still wants to do this, do him, they are going to do it and then they will have done it with each other, forever. Dan could call this off and send Chuck home or discover a newfound fascination with polyprotic acids, but he liked the sneak preview and he's intrigued now. And besides, Chuck still scares the crap out of him, although Dan has noticed that Chuck gets a little more interested whenever Dan manages to stand up to him, to cobble together a witty retort, to stall Chuck or play hard to get. It's something to keep in mind for the next time he comes up with something clever to say. But for now he's lying here on his bed like he has a choice other than to let Chuck fuck him in the butt.
Chuck comes back and leans over Dan, and that is actually his tongue, kind of a leap of faith on Chuck's part but damn, warm and slippery across Dan's tender skin and he curls his toes and spreads his legs apart. He mostly lost his erection in the nervousness and sarcasm but now it is back, rubbing against the bedspread, which is what Dan is focusing on when Chuck sticks a warm, slippery, um, something in him. "Wha --?"
"Just a finger. You know I'm not that small. Oh, shit, don't tell me you're allergic to lube."
"Oh, like -- no. No, fine." Dan hopes it's fine. He's seen commercials but has never been sure what you'd need it for, but now lube is his new best friend because he's pretty sure that's multiple fingers and he is starting to see how an entire dick would one, fit and two, be sort of great. Chuck works his fingers at a slightly different angle and brushes something in there and the world tilts sideways. "Can you, um, do that again?" Dan says, and Chuck does that again, and again, and Dan hears himself make a noise he did not know he was capable of. He grinds into the bedspread as Chuck presses his fingers deeper, and he think, just put seven or eight dicks in him, he wouldn't mind, and did he say that out loud?
Chuck leans over Dan's ear and whispers, "I only have one, but I could make some calls." He collapses his body over Dan's, kissing Dan's neck. Just one dick turns out to be a lot, a burst of pain but it eases, especially since Chuck adjusts himself until he's doing the same thing with his dick that he was doing with his fingers, only more so. The bigger problem is, Dan's rubbing against the bedspread and that's not a good place for rug burn, so he croaks out a plea for lube and instead gets Chuck's slick hand. From there he mostly feels his own dick and Chuck's hand until he comes all over the bedspread. And then it's back to Chuck's dick in him, and it hurts and he wants it to be over, and it makes the room spin and he wants Chuck to never get off, but Chuck does.
Chuck rolls off of Dan and Dan follows him, climbs on top and teases Chuck with a kiss. "So where are we going tonight?" Dan says.
"Don't you have a chem test tomorrow?" Chuck says perversely, like he's someone's mom flashing her breasts from across the kitchen.
"I studied," Dan says.
"So." Chuck strokes Dan's chin with probably the same finger he just stuck up Dan's butt. "We're in Williamsburg, right? I know a place."
An hour later Dan is learning that he seriously hates cocaine and unlike gay sex will never do it again as long as he lives because it is just making him more neurotic about his chem test and also possessive when Chuck hits on girls, which makes no sense because he should be pleading with girls to take Chuck off his hands and instead he wants to give Chuck a hand job under the table and he is seriously never doing drugs again.
Home again after last call, he does his French homework and reads all of Paradise Lost, the sun coming up as Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden. He's high until approximately the Williamsburg Bridge, and by chemistry class he feels like he's been run over by a steamroller. In the hall after his test, he grabs Chuck and whispers, "I officially hate cocaine."
"It's not for everyone." Chuck fixes Dan's collar, his fingers lingering at Dan's neck. "So we'll stay in and fuck tonight." He's not whispering, and a gaggle of sophomores turns around.
"He's kidding," Dan says, waving his hands desperately. "Kidding." But he's not, and during his lunch period, Dan makes the world's most humiliating Duane Reade run. One box of ribbed extra-strength lubricated, one box of unlubricated mint-flavored, and a tube of Astroglide. He buys cheap buffet Chinese food on the way back and eats it on the front steps of St. Jude's while the girls in their color-coordinated headbands stare at him like he is a zoological specimen, or maybe they wish he would offer them some beef with broccoli. He'd trade them his lunch for a couple of Advil.
In English class, Dan feels like he is in actual hell, but at least he has done all the reading. They're talking about why Milton's Devil is so much more interesting than God. Dan can't stop thinking about gay sex, and although that is the answer to Mr. Davidson's question, it's not exactly something he can raise his hand and say. But Dan's mouth is cottony and it's not so much his head that aches as his soul, so his judgment isn't the greatest, and his hand is in the air. "Because we all know what it's like to fall, and if we don't, it's only a - a matter of time." Mr. Davidson likes Dan's answer, but Serena turns around to stare burning lasers through his skull, trying to etch her name into the bone. She's always thought it was her job to save him from the villains of the Upper East Side.
So maybe she figures in some subconscious Freudian way when, after school, Dan and Chuck are making out before they're all the way out of the elevator, and they're leaving a trail of clothes to the bedroom like they want to be found. Dan closes the door and pushes Chuck against it to keep it closed. He grabs Chuck's dick and honestly, he's just planning to go down because he's semi-confident in that ability. But Chuck turns Dan around and holds him against the wall, and Dan decides that's not how this is going to go. He wrenches himself free from Chuck's arms and swings himself around Chuck, pinning Chuck against the wall. He sticks his hand down Chuck's pants, and Chuck is not shy about how much he likes that.
Dan should not be getting this hard just from touching another guy's dick and thinking about possibly being brave enough to fuck him, but that's what's happening and he's going to go with it. He takes a shame condom out of his pocket and he is not as good as Chuck at getting people's clothes off but he makes it happen. "Go slow," Chuck says, and it is not easy to indulge him, to do the thing with his fingers, but this is the closest Chuck will come to admitting he's never let a guy do this to him before. Dan is taking this as a giant compliment. He is also taking Chuck Bass up the ass, and he feels huge, powerful, captain of the universe until the door opens and he's a guy with his pants around his ankles who has been caught fucking his ex-girlfriend's stepbrother in her room. Which is where they are, by the way.
Dan is scrambling to put his pants on; Chuck is already out the door, blowing a kiss; Serena is standing with her hands on her hips like the tragic thing about this situation is that she can believe it. She doesn't ask what Dan was thinking because it is enough for her to stand there and judge him while he blushes like a fire truck. "I'm sorry. I - I - I didn't realize it was your room. And Chuck, being Chuck, as he is, you know, all the time, didn't - didn't correct me."
"How - how long?" Her lower lip is quivering. Soon, she will let a single pearly tear slide down her apple-blossom cheek. Do girls like her buy makeup to create that effect? It's not the kind of thing they sell at Duane Reade.
He is mean, she is crying, he should feel guilty. But she broke his heart, and that's a first time he can't do over. "Since Monday."
"Three days." Her sad smile is the most beautiful in her arsenal. "That's a long-term commitment for Chuck."
Dan is stammering and rubbing his nose when he should be acting like a guy who has had Chuck Bass up against a wall for three days in a row. "Yeah, it's just for the time being, we... we're pretty much using each other. You know, for the sex." He listens to himself and knows he will never sound like that guy.
She laughs darkly. "You can't use Chuck. Chuck uses people. He's not a - a use-ee."
"Yeah, well, I've been used by enough people for enough things over the past year that I've learned a few tricks."
"I guess so." She looks contrite, lip-quivery again. "It's just - I'm - I'm still getting used to my brother, and him, I kind of suspected anyway, and now you and Chuck? At once? Together? It's, I mean, we agreed, you can do what you want, you need to do what you want, but really? Chuck? Really Chuck?"
"We - I don't even know what - we just sort of -" Somewhere in there, Dan finds a breath. "Would you rather I was in love with someone? Or would you rather I was with someone I knew there is absolutely no chance I will ever be in love with?"
Serena folds her arms, which makes Dan think about her breasts. He reminds himself that he does not want sex, that sex is waiting in the next room and is the embodiment of evil.
Serena says, "I - I wish I had a moral high ground, but you - but you've always had that over me."
He almost tells her he misses her. To cover that up, he blurts out, "Yesterday I learned that I'll never be a coke fiend."
"He gave you - of course he gave you." She's laughing and hiding her mouth behind a hand. "And of course you hated it. Dan, you - you're so yourself." Dan is being hugged and kissed on the forehead, and he is working very hard to not have an erection.
"I'm -- I'm going down the hall." Dan points with his thumb.
"Please don't tell me." She looks crushed again when Dan smiles at her. He can tell she wanted to mean that hug, wanted to give her approval, but neither of them is there yet. Or will ever be, probably, but they have to move on. Like Dan is doing such a fantastic job of.
Down the hall in the right direction with the door open a crack, Chuck is lying on his bed (unless it's Eric's bed, which would be horrifying), naked, reading Paradise Lost. "Is this - is this another study date?" Dan says.
"It's a school night, isn't it?" Chuck does his word-twisting trick; it sounds like they've been assigned to read an epic poem justifying the ways of anal sex to man.
"I'm -- I'm not writing your paper for you."
"I wouldn't dream of asking." Chuck rolls over to give Dan a full frontal view. "I might be accused of eloquence. Besides, I like the book. Sympathy for the Devil. I could write a paper on that. Or at least purchase it with my own money."
Dan undresses matter-of-factly and dives onto the bed. They mess around for a while, but Dan's not getting anywhere. Chuck squeezes Dan's balls, enough pressure for discomfort but not enough to hurt. "Are you bored with me already?"
"No - I - I mean -- She's right down the hall. Serena."
"She might have gone out." Chuck is playing with Dan's balls like they're an intimidating toy from an executive's desk. "And she doesn't want to fuck you." Chuck sharpens each word to a point and sticks them in Dan's skin. Now, Dan is all nerves and not getting anywhere at all, but Chuck is doing just fine in Dan's hand and seems to settle for that. Dan's not sure what to do with his handful of cum, but while he's scanning the room for a box of Kleenex, Chuck licks his hand clean, keeps licking long after it's empty, sucking on Dan's fingers. While Dan is trying to make sense of why this is sexy and not gross, Chuck reaches for Dan's dick again and says, "Oh, too bad."
They lie around naked reviewing the past subjunctive for French, because Mme. Didier's pop quizzes are about as surprising as the existence of Thursdays. French grammar makes more sense in the nude, or maybe it's the foreign-film absurdity of hooking up repeatedly with his ex-girlfriend's stepbrother.
Chuck rolls a bottle of Stoli out from under the bed. Dan would have expected something fancier, but he guesses Chuck is saving the good stuff for someone he needs to impress. Chuck opens the bottle and raises it. "To the bitches who won't fuck us." They each take a few gulps. Vodka goes down easy now that Dan's had much harder stuff, but it's the first thing he ever got drunk on, the summer after seventh grade on a fishing dock in the Poconos with a bunch of kids he'd never see again. Like this, right out of the bottle, so he feels like he's losing his virginity all over again.
Dan runs his hands over some relatively neutral parts of Chuck's body, his arms and his neck, and says, "Should we, um, try again?"
Chuck kisses him relentlessly. Dan wonders if Chuck is this rough with girls, or if Chuck is making an effort to treat him differently. Chuck is obnoxious and smarmy when he's trying to seduce sweetly, but Dan knows he's being naive when he interprets this violence as more genuine.
"Did you want to try being on top again?" Chuck says.
Dan swallows vodka-flavored air. "Okay."
Chuck squints at him, recognizing the insult. Dan wants to rip the expression off Chuck's face with his tongue. Their teeth click together as they kiss feverishly. Dan bites Chuck's lip and runs his tongue over the bead of swollen skin he's trapped. Chuck fights his way free and rolls over. Dan gets the Astroglide out of his bag and picks off the plastic seal while Chuck stares at him, annoyed but it is not Dan's fault that Chuck left all his supplies in Serena's room. Dan finally gets the lube open and palms a condom so he doesn't forget, and all of that so he can finger Chuck for about fifteen seconds before Chuck says, "Just do it already. I don't care if it hurts." Dan does it already, and if it hurts, Chuck hides the pain.
Chuck is crouching on his knees, arms out in front of him like a cat stretching into a sunbeam, and dan is kind of riding him from behind. There's a cluster of acne in the middle of Chuck's back, and it's nice that Chuck has such a visible flaw, that he's another high school kid with bad skin, with a body he can't trust. And this is what bodies are for, for activities more primal than epic poetry or the past subjunctive, the things humanity invented to keep itself busy between fucking. Bodies, bodies are beautiful, generally, and Dan is thinking about them but thinking more with his dick, because that's really happy right now, and then he's not thinking at all and then coming too fast and too soon. He would apologize, but that would only irritate Chuck.
Dan gives Chuck a quick finishing blow job. Chuck needs so little encouragement that Dan's skills are irrelevant. "So I guess I'll... see you tomorrow?" Dan says. "Since it's a school night." These are two of the most preposterous sentences Dan has ever uttered, in a life full of excellent candidates, but Chuck doesn't protest. It is alarmingly generous of him.
Dan gets dressed and leaves without a kiss goodbye. He finds a subway station, and the most obscene thing about today is, he's home before 8 PM. His dad doesn't even ask him where he's been.
*
Dan is conscious and not chemically altered for the first time this week, and yet he is volunteering to pair up with Chuck for a mock debate in U.S. History. The penis is a powerful motivator. They go to a coffee shop after school to work on their presentation because they both have interviews at Yale this weekend. The Ivy League is utterly thwarting Dan's penis's plans.
Three lattes later, they are completely prepared for next Tuesday, and Dan needs to pee. Chuck follows him into the bathroom. "Stop it. I actually need to go."
"So go." Chuck leans back against the paper towel dispenser.
"You're going to watch me pee."
"I'm going to stare at your dick."
It is really difficult to pee with Chuck kissing his neck and feeling him up. Dan's dick is really into it, but his brain kind of wants to go home and fall asleep watching the Saturday Night Live primetime special. Dan tries to pull up his pants but Chuck is playing with his butt. "Hey. We're in a bathroom. In public. A public bathroom."
"And?" Chuck sticks a finger in Dan's ass. Dan's not sure he consented to that.
"And -- and I guess that turns you on?"
"It turns you on, too." Chuck moves his finger around, and Dan wants to answer him but he has to gasp first, and then more because Chuck has at least one more finger in him now and is thrusting harder. And talking like a James Bond villain, except Dan has no opportunity for escape. "If it didn't turn you on, you wouldn't have been with Serena. You wouldn't be with me. You love that people might be watching you. You love that someone might catch you and take your picture and put you on the internet, so you can pretend to be famous for five more minutes."
Dan wants to retort wittily, but Chuck is fucking him, so he closes his eyes and hopes he remembered to lock the door. Or maybe Chuck is right, and Dan wants the door to be unlocked, wants someone to walk in and spot them and have everyone at school know and fear them, envy their recklessness.
Chuck comes kind of fast, not horrible but the kind of thing he'd have to apologize for if Dan were a girl. Dan sees it as, Chuck sat through three lattes wanting him this much, not being able to wait. It's a compliment, but it's also a sign that Dan should run away as fast as he can. He's pretty sure he's too weak to survive Chuck Bass's devotion.
"Do you want me to jerk you off?" Chuck says.
"No, I -- I'm good." Dan turns on the sink, more to make noise than to wash his hands.
"So you're done with me, then? You're bored with me." Chuck trails his fingers up the side of Dan's head, making Dan cock his head sideways and expose skin to be bitten.
Dan pretends he doesn't feel it. He dries his hands and slings his bag over his shoulder. He's not sure what he's doing, but it seems to be working.
Chuck follows him too closely, stalking prey. "Let's go somewhere. Let's get dinner."
"Thanks, but I'm -- you know, my dad's cooking tonight, and I'm -- maybe some other time."
Chuck pouts; it seems genuine, but he'd hide his disappointment if it weren't calculated. "You really are bored with me."
Dan puts Chuck's hand on his dick. "A little bored."
"You're a horrible liar," Chuck says, stroking him, teasing.
"I totally had you going." Dan sticks his tongue in Chuck's mouth and succumbs to the men's room hand job he apparently deserves.
Chuck's driver takes them down to the Village, to this absurd restaurant where literally even the cocktails have bacon in them. They get drunk in the car and leave their school bags behind when they're dropped off. Chuck is reticent through the meal, studying Dan through his narrow, sinister eyes as if waiting for Dan to say something damning.
"I know where we're going," Chuck says as he pays the check. He practically drags Dan out to the sidewalk and through the maze of the West Village. Dan loses track of the streets; he's mostly sober, but his brain feels slippery, like he's high on bacon grease. Did Chuck drop something into his drink?
Chuck leads Dan into a nightclub. Tiny, bright lights in the dark room track like fireflies. Steady, deafening techno music thrums Dan's teeth. There are guys making out on the dance floor. Chuck negotiates with the bartender, smiling and squinting and offering cash, his usual arsenal. He returns with two drinks in highball glasses. "Stir it until the sugar cube dissolves," Chuck has to yell over the music, but it feels private as a whisper. Everything Chuck says makes Dan feel like that, but it's just another game.
The drink tastes deafeningly of licorice. The room goes green around the edges and begins to undulate with the rhythm of the music. Wads of light zoom and hover in the corners of his eyes. A guy in a sheer, tight t-shirt walks by, brushing Dan's butt with his hand. Dan considers following him, since his head-giving skills are nothing to be ashamed of, after all, but he'd probably end up abandoned in an alley with no shoes on, and he's already done that once this week. As the guy passes, Dan sees that he has wings growing out of his back, lacy and massive. Imaginary, he tells himself, but his eyes are stubborn. And he laughs, because the guy is wearing them strapped to his shoulders like a backpack, trailing feathers.
"Dance with me," Chuck commands. On the dance floor, they gyrate and kiss. The music is an intense, jubilant creature with its arms around them.
And its high is going to wear off, and they are going to crash, the two of them, bringing each other down. "I have to go." Dan kisses Chuck's hand. "I'm Cinderella." Chuck tries to stop him, but he's already switched on his subway-station radar, which works despite whatever is in his head. What is he on, anyway? It's kind of fantastic.
He takes a slow, green-tinged ride home, watching a troop of drunken aspiring models lurch and giggle whenever the train stops. One of them smiles at him, the crease of her lips to the edge of his vision, or is she another hallucination? Her cool poise reminds him of Serena.
Dan stumbles up to the loft, can't find his keys, and has to bang on the door until Jenny lets him in. "Where have you been? Are you high? Never mind. It's all on Gossip Girl anyway."
He tries to explain how little he cares what Gossip Girl says about him, but Jenny is parking him in front of the computer.
Hey, Upper East Siders, here's the long-awaited update on St. Jude's strangest bromance. Yes, I'm talking about Lonely Boy and C., who have been shockingly inseparable since Monday. Several dedicated correspondents insist there's nothing "bro" about this 'mance, but without some better verification, this one could go either way. Here's the evidence so far. Spotted this afternoon at Duane Reade: Lonely Boy making a very optimistic prophylactic purchase. Getting ready for another successful night as C.'s wingman, or providing more intimate services? The receipt our spy snagged reveals nothing more decisive than a preference for Trojans and Astroglide. Another little birdie claims to have seen C. and Lonely Boy at Pacha, very shirtless and very affectionate. Sorry, Birdie, no photo means no scoop. And no answers on the most interesting question in all of this: who's corrupting who? There are widespread reports that C. has been showing up to class on time, homework in hand. Is C. introducing Lonely Boy to the dark side, or is Lonely Boy showing C. the path to the honor roll? Keep those tips coming!
XOXO,
Gossip Girl
Jenny looks at Dan expectantly. He says, "It's all true. You read it on Gossip Girl, right?" He goes to his room and slams the door, not caring who he wakes.
*
Chuck catches Dan on the school steps the next morning, holding Dan's backpack out in front of him like it smells funny. "Your glass slipper," Chuck says, attracting freshman paparazzi. Dan tries to brush by him wordlessly, but Chuck whispers, "Front pocket."
Dan reads the note during homeroom. How hilarious was that Gossip Girl item? Chuck wouldn't be caught dead at Pacha. And as if it were an afterthought, lunch period, second-floor janitor's closet, Chuck has a key, knock exactly seven times. Dan should be getting hard just thinking about it, but instead he has "Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me" stuck in his head, and also probably a math quiz he has not studied for, and look, his apartment key, in his backpack where he left it.
Dan goes to the second floor janitor's closet without butterflies in his stomach, because his belly is too howlingly empty to register fear. Chuck pulls him in by his tie and shoves him against the wall, kissing him. "Wait," Dan says. Chuck ignores him, or perhaps he thinks he's obeying by going for Dan's belt. "No. Stop it. I'm done with this. I'm out."
Chuck steps back and blinks at him, mouth puckered in acid confusion. "I thought you said you weren't bored with me yet."
"I wasn't. But I... I wanted to understand you, so I... and now I do, and you're - you're not that interesting, Chuck."
"Well, if that's how you feel." Chuck swings the door open with a wide gesture and a bruised smirk that lets Dan know Chuck will retaliate in a thousand small but humiliating ways. But Dan would rather suffer humiliation than fuck Chuck out of fear. Dan's so used to embarrassment he hardly feels it anymore, but fear would be new.
Dan treads water through the afternoon. He's managed an A- on his chem test despite the cocaine hangover and an unprecedented 100% on his French quiz. It's funny to think that dumping Chuck will hurt his GPA. He's definitely fucked for the history debate next week: one small humiliation, coming up.
On the subway home, he feels like he's escaping. He snags a seat and sits back to watch the passengers come and go. There's a girl standing at the far end of the car, pretty in a strange way, Scheherazade eyes and a nose too big for her face. She's wearing a tricked-out prep school uniform: pink-and-black candy-striped tights, silver lace-up boots, pink vinyl raincoat, pink pillbox hat with a veil over one eye. Quirky, the kind of girl he would have been attracted to before St. Jude's, before Serena.
He takes out his notebook and writes about her, a word sketch so he won't forget her. So he doesn't look like he's stalking her, he writes about the other people on the train, too. A porcine man reading a Russian newspaper, taking up three seats. An elderly Asian woman with a gigantic pot of yellow chrysanthemums in her lap. Three Dominican girls crowded around a cell phone, shrieking about a text message.
At the bottom of the page, he writes his phone number and first name. How many times has he done this when he's seen a cute girl on the subway and not followed through? Somewhere in the low dozens.
The girl in the pink hat gets off at his stop. In a moment of Bassian boldness, he says, "Hey, I think you dropped this," and slips her the phone number. She unfolds it, smiles, and turns the other way down Lorimer Street. He's sure he'll never see her again.
He goes home, makes himself a snack, eats until he's full of butterflies. His dad comes home early. "Surprised to see you here."
"I thought I'd take the night off," Dan says. "What do you say to pizza and Netflix? Unless you - you have a date or something."
"I don't know. Do you deserve pizza and Netflix?"
Dan pulls two A's out of his backpack. The plus on one will cancel out the minus on the other. Dan waits for the lecture about blowing off his curfew to have gay sex, but his dad just gets out the pizza menu, whistling his way to the phone and not asking what toppings Dan wants. Pineapple and onion might be his punishment. Dan's dad is creative.
There is one pepperoni pie and one artichoke, and they watch a Will Ferrell movie and let themselves laugh at it. Dan is home with his dad on a Friday night, and it's the best night he's had all week. That might make him a loser, but he'd rather be that. When Lonely Boy lives up to his name, Gossip Girl doesn't give a shit.
It looks like the punishment is that there will be no lecture, no acknowledgement, no opportunity to confide. Dan has behaved so far beyond his father's understanding that there's no way of correcting it. After the movie, Dan goes to his room to pour his heart out to the page, since that will listen. Surely he has enough now for a juicy Charlie Trout adventure. But he doesn't know where to start; he's got too much on the guy. And despite Chuck's armor of hair products and bow ties, Dan suspects he's done enough damage to Chuck's ego, maybe even to his heart.
He writes about the girl from the subway, instead, to clear his mind. She becomes the model from last night, too, and the girl with the streamer barrettes who he saw last week reading Fight Club on the N train, and every subway girl before them, forever. She wants to leave the city behind and work on an organic dairy farm, but she can't get out. She buys a plane ticket, but there's a bomb threat and La Guardia shuts down. She tries to take the Chinatown bus but gets mugged at the stop. She rents a car and thinks this time she's made it, but a truck jackknifes on the George Washington Bridge. It turns out to be a livestock truck, and she lures a calf that has wandered into the road. When the traffic clears, she turns around with the calf in her back seat to raise it secretly in Tompkins Square Park.
It's unlike anything he's written, bizarre and absurd. And totally made up. Maybe it's a vestige of last night's green hallucinations. Regardless, he's going to send it to The New Yorker; he's going to send it to Yale. He got a story out of this week that he couldn't have written before.
Title: Do Right, But Not Right Now
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Pairing: Dan/Chuck
Spoilers/Continuity: Set between "The Serena Also Rises" and "New Haven Can Wait," with specific references to both. Actually remains consistent with subsequent episodes.
Rating: NC-17 for explicit sex, drug use, and language.
Warning: Both principal characters are high school seniors, age seventeen and a half.
Summary: How to seduce Chuck Bass, raise your GPA, and become a writer in under five days.
Word Count: about 6,800.
Disclaimer: Gossip Girl is the intellectual property of College Hill, 17th Street, Alloy, and Warner Bros; it is based on the novels by Cecily Von Ziegesar. This original work of fan fiction is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this Livejournal post. This story is a labor of love, not money, so it's protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976. Fool, look in thy heart and write.
Notes: Thanks to callmesandy for the beta and to thistle90 for audiencing and encouragement. The title is from "Look at Miss Ohio" by Gillian Welch.
The mind is its own place and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same
And what I should be...
- Satan, Paradise Lost (John Milton)
*
Dan is at Chuck's door saying he wants to get out of his comfort zone, and Chuck is asking if Dan is gay, and Dan isn't quite saying no, because how do you know something like that until you - until he is letting Chuck pull him inside and take him out of his clothes. This is a skill in which Chuck has considerable experience, apparently, obviously. Dan is naked with his back against uncomfortable antique wall moldings, and Chuck is giving him chapter one of things outside his comfort zone, which involves a lot of Chuck's tongue. A tongue is a tongue if Dan closes his eyes, hands are hands, a hand on his dick will make him hard, any hand, Chuck's hand. Chuck is moving south, would be the euphemism, leading with his hands, which are not any hands but specifically Chuck Bass hands and then specifically Chuck Bass tongue on Dan's dick. Dan has believed he has been with girls who knew how to go down, but he has believed so wrong. "Condom?" he has the presence of mind to say, because he got an A in sex ed and Chuck is the sexual equivalent of a subway rat. Once when Dan was a little kid he fed chips to a subway rat and his mom yelled at him, and he thinks he might be doing the same thing now, but maybe his mom shouldn't have walked out, then, right?
Chuck has a condom astonishingly nearby and is gracious about using it, is graceful with his tongue which is a blessing. The moldings dig into Dan's back, and he gets hard into Chuck's mouth, and he wants to grab Chuck's hair and pull Chuck's face deeper onto his dick, and he wants his brain to stop saying Chuck's, Chuck's, Chuck's name over and over and did he also say that out loud? Chuck. Is making him come.
Horizons expanded, Dan searches for his clothes, but Chuck says, "Hey, not so fast," and by the time Dan can react to that and turn around, he is looking right at Chuck's dick. Dan is pretty sure he's seen an erect penis before, like, one that was not his and not on the internet, but he didn't see it on purpose, not that he was seeing Chuck's on purpose either. But Chuck is making sure he sees, making an accusation: Chuck is hard, and it's all Dan's fault. Dan sinks to his knees, victim to another Chuck Bass scheme. Chuck presses his finger to Dan's lips and for a second Dan thinks he's off the hook, but it turns out Chuck is another sex ed graduate. Dan considers his position; certainly, Dan has received blow jobs, and he is now speedily compiling every bad experience and trying to avoid them. This is what he's got: don't put the whole thing in his mouth at once, and don't bite. This might be more than he can handle, but he absolutely cannot pussy out if he plans to survive high school. No, that is an understatement. Chuck Bass could destroy the whole rest of his life and possibly follow him into Hell.
The condom is minty fresh, and that is not a flavor Dan particularly wants to associate with Chuck's penis, but there are worse possibilities. Once Dan gets going, it isn't that bad. Repetitive, and it wears out his jaw, although he guesses that part would get better with practice. Practice, imagine practicing this, imagine having a guy he wanted to keep satisfied so he would have to practice, not that he would ever want that, not that he is into that at all. But he can see how a person could be, with Chuck making soft noises that might actually be beyond his control, as if anything were beyond Chuck Bass's control. Chuck getting off forcefully and almost making Dan break both of his newly-discovered blow job rules at once, that is part of Chuck's plan. Chuck gasping for air and sliding down the antique molding to kiss the top of Dan's head like he had a great time and still respects Dan and everything, all of that is in the master plan.
Chuck says, "What are you doing? Put your clothes on," and the next thing Dan knows he's in a club in, oh, somewhere below 14th. He lost track after his seventh or eighth swig of unidentified alcohol in the limo, but the point is he is drunk and on drugs and then he is in jail and Chuck might be weeping, might be bullshitting him, and then he is alone on the street in the middle of the night with no shoes on.
*
Dan thinks that's the end of his Chuck Bass affair, because what else is there to think, but the next afternoon Chuck shows up at the loft, demanding, "Do you realize how long it takes to get to Brooklyn?"
"The bridges get pretty backed up," Dan says. "You should take the subway when you turn around and go back home."
"We have a chem test tomorrow. Be my study buddy?" Chuck makes study buddy sound like a relationship involving bullwhips and Crisco.
Dan shouts over his shoulder, "Dad, Chuck's here to study for our chem test."
"Your dad's here?"
"He lives here." Dan drops an arm from the doorframe to let Chuck pass. "Maybe he'll bring us some Capri Sun and granola bars."
For thirteen and a half minutes, they actually study chemistry, the kind that involves balancing equations and reviewing lab logs. Dan wonders if the Chuck Bass plan specifies 13.5 minutes of sitting cross-legged on Dan's bed looking smug while pretending to memorize the properties of acids. "So," Dan says. "Are we studying or are we 'studying'?"
"By 'studying,' do you mean 'fucking'?" Chuck practically yells the last word.
"What I mean is, I know why you're here. You're here because I am the only person, the only person, which is ridiculous but nonetheless, who can get you off other than Blair Waldorf, to your knowledge and the knowledge of anyone else in the greater St. Jude's community, and saying you need me might be putting to fine a point on it, but I... there are services that only Blair and I can provide, and I'm guessing she, she isn't exactly returning your phone calls." Dan pauses for oxygen. "Also, I want my shoes back."
"I gave your shoes to the homeless."
"So the rest is -"
"Accurate." Chuck pushes Dan back onto the bed, and that is all he needs to do to make Dan ragingly, mortifyingly hard. Chuck slides up Dan's body, right into first base, and kissing Chuck is so disturbingly hot that Dan's worried he's going to come in his pants. To distract himself, or because he's curious, or because it seems like a logical thing to do if the sex is going to happen, Dan reaches for Chuck's dick. He can feel its rigid outline and it's good to know he's not alone in this. "Mm," Chuck says, and while Dan is feeling pleased with himself, Chuck wraps his arms around Dan's chest and butt and rolls him over. Chuck's ability to get people out of their clothes is really a rare talent, like, Dan hasn't really mastered bra clasps, not that it matters in this case, but the point is Dan has no idea how his pants got away from him so fast.
Chuck is on top of Dan, kissing the back of Dan's neck, which is not strictly necessary although tough to complain about. He is making a trail down Dan's back with his lips and now he is kissing Dan's butt, which is pretty much what he should be doing, albeit figuratively. It is at this point that Dan figures out what Chuck is planning, and he freezes, clenches his fists, tries to shake Chuck off of him but realizes all he really has to do is ask Chuck not to. "I'm not sure I --"
Chuck runs a finger in the cleft of Dan's ass, which makes Dan shiver. Maybe it's supposed to feel that good; it would explain why anyone would do this ever. Chuck says, "Out of your comfort zone again?"
"Way out."
"I'll be gentle," Chuck says. He's playing with Dan's butt, moving that finger around, obviously aware of how it feels when someone does that. "Can't have you screaming bloody murder with your dad home."
"Can't have you hurting me, because then I'd never let you touch me again, and then you'd be stuck alone in your room jerking off to your fond memories of Blair's headbands."
Chuck growls - actually makes a growling noise like a tiger and is that supposed to be sexy? - and rises off of Dan, making Dan wonder if he's driven Chuck away, although he can't imagine it's that easy. But Dan can see out of the corner of his eye that Chuck is looking in his bag for something, hopefully condoms or a mild sedative. Regardless, a sign that Chuck still wants to do this, do him, they are going to do it and then they will have done it with each other, forever. Dan could call this off and send Chuck home or discover a newfound fascination with polyprotic acids, but he liked the sneak preview and he's intrigued now. And besides, Chuck still scares the crap out of him, although Dan has noticed that Chuck gets a little more interested whenever Dan manages to stand up to him, to cobble together a witty retort, to stall Chuck or play hard to get. It's something to keep in mind for the next time he comes up with something clever to say. But for now he's lying here on his bed like he has a choice other than to let Chuck fuck him in the butt.
Chuck comes back and leans over Dan, and that is actually his tongue, kind of a leap of faith on Chuck's part but damn, warm and slippery across Dan's tender skin and he curls his toes and spreads his legs apart. He mostly lost his erection in the nervousness and sarcasm but now it is back, rubbing against the bedspread, which is what Dan is focusing on when Chuck sticks a warm, slippery, um, something in him. "Wha --?"
"Just a finger. You know I'm not that small. Oh, shit, don't tell me you're allergic to lube."
"Oh, like -- no. No, fine." Dan hopes it's fine. He's seen commercials but has never been sure what you'd need it for, but now lube is his new best friend because he's pretty sure that's multiple fingers and he is starting to see how an entire dick would one, fit and two, be sort of great. Chuck works his fingers at a slightly different angle and brushes something in there and the world tilts sideways. "Can you, um, do that again?" Dan says, and Chuck does that again, and again, and Dan hears himself make a noise he did not know he was capable of. He grinds into the bedspread as Chuck presses his fingers deeper, and he think, just put seven or eight dicks in him, he wouldn't mind, and did he say that out loud?
Chuck leans over Dan's ear and whispers, "I only have one, but I could make some calls." He collapses his body over Dan's, kissing Dan's neck. Just one dick turns out to be a lot, a burst of pain but it eases, especially since Chuck adjusts himself until he's doing the same thing with his dick that he was doing with his fingers, only more so. The bigger problem is, Dan's rubbing against the bedspread and that's not a good place for rug burn, so he croaks out a plea for lube and instead gets Chuck's slick hand. From there he mostly feels his own dick and Chuck's hand until he comes all over the bedspread. And then it's back to Chuck's dick in him, and it hurts and he wants it to be over, and it makes the room spin and he wants Chuck to never get off, but Chuck does.
Chuck rolls off of Dan and Dan follows him, climbs on top and teases Chuck with a kiss. "So where are we going tonight?" Dan says.
"Don't you have a chem test tomorrow?" Chuck says perversely, like he's someone's mom flashing her breasts from across the kitchen.
"I studied," Dan says.
"So." Chuck strokes Dan's chin with probably the same finger he just stuck up Dan's butt. "We're in Williamsburg, right? I know a place."
An hour later Dan is learning that he seriously hates cocaine and unlike gay sex will never do it again as long as he lives because it is just making him more neurotic about his chem test and also possessive when Chuck hits on girls, which makes no sense because he should be pleading with girls to take Chuck off his hands and instead he wants to give Chuck a hand job under the table and he is seriously never doing drugs again.
Home again after last call, he does his French homework and reads all of Paradise Lost, the sun coming up as Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden. He's high until approximately the Williamsburg Bridge, and by chemistry class he feels like he's been run over by a steamroller. In the hall after his test, he grabs Chuck and whispers, "I officially hate cocaine."
"It's not for everyone." Chuck fixes Dan's collar, his fingers lingering at Dan's neck. "So we'll stay in and fuck tonight." He's not whispering, and a gaggle of sophomores turns around.
"He's kidding," Dan says, waving his hands desperately. "Kidding." But he's not, and during his lunch period, Dan makes the world's most humiliating Duane Reade run. One box of ribbed extra-strength lubricated, one box of unlubricated mint-flavored, and a tube of Astroglide. He buys cheap buffet Chinese food on the way back and eats it on the front steps of St. Jude's while the girls in their color-coordinated headbands stare at him like he is a zoological specimen, or maybe they wish he would offer them some beef with broccoli. He'd trade them his lunch for a couple of Advil.
In English class, Dan feels like he is in actual hell, but at least he has done all the reading. They're talking about why Milton's Devil is so much more interesting than God. Dan can't stop thinking about gay sex, and although that is the answer to Mr. Davidson's question, it's not exactly something he can raise his hand and say. But Dan's mouth is cottony and it's not so much his head that aches as his soul, so his judgment isn't the greatest, and his hand is in the air. "Because we all know what it's like to fall, and if we don't, it's only a - a matter of time." Mr. Davidson likes Dan's answer, but Serena turns around to stare burning lasers through his skull, trying to etch her name into the bone. She's always thought it was her job to save him from the villains of the Upper East Side.
So maybe she figures in some subconscious Freudian way when, after school, Dan and Chuck are making out before they're all the way out of the elevator, and they're leaving a trail of clothes to the bedroom like they want to be found. Dan closes the door and pushes Chuck against it to keep it closed. He grabs Chuck's dick and honestly, he's just planning to go down because he's semi-confident in that ability. But Chuck turns Dan around and holds him against the wall, and Dan decides that's not how this is going to go. He wrenches himself free from Chuck's arms and swings himself around Chuck, pinning Chuck against the wall. He sticks his hand down Chuck's pants, and Chuck is not shy about how much he likes that.
Dan should not be getting this hard just from touching another guy's dick and thinking about possibly being brave enough to fuck him, but that's what's happening and he's going to go with it. He takes a shame condom out of his pocket and he is not as good as Chuck at getting people's clothes off but he makes it happen. "Go slow," Chuck says, and it is not easy to indulge him, to do the thing with his fingers, but this is the closest Chuck will come to admitting he's never let a guy do this to him before. Dan is taking this as a giant compliment. He is also taking Chuck Bass up the ass, and he feels huge, powerful, captain of the universe until the door opens and he's a guy with his pants around his ankles who has been caught fucking his ex-girlfriend's stepbrother in her room. Which is where they are, by the way.
Dan is scrambling to put his pants on; Chuck is already out the door, blowing a kiss; Serena is standing with her hands on her hips like the tragic thing about this situation is that she can believe it. She doesn't ask what Dan was thinking because it is enough for her to stand there and judge him while he blushes like a fire truck. "I'm sorry. I - I - I didn't realize it was your room. And Chuck, being Chuck, as he is, you know, all the time, didn't - didn't correct me."
"How - how long?" Her lower lip is quivering. Soon, she will let a single pearly tear slide down her apple-blossom cheek. Do girls like her buy makeup to create that effect? It's not the kind of thing they sell at Duane Reade.
He is mean, she is crying, he should feel guilty. But she broke his heart, and that's a first time he can't do over. "Since Monday."
"Three days." Her sad smile is the most beautiful in her arsenal. "That's a long-term commitment for Chuck."
Dan is stammering and rubbing his nose when he should be acting like a guy who has had Chuck Bass up against a wall for three days in a row. "Yeah, it's just for the time being, we... we're pretty much using each other. You know, for the sex." He listens to himself and knows he will never sound like that guy.
She laughs darkly. "You can't use Chuck. Chuck uses people. He's not a - a use-ee."
"Yeah, well, I've been used by enough people for enough things over the past year that I've learned a few tricks."
"I guess so." She looks contrite, lip-quivery again. "It's just - I'm - I'm still getting used to my brother, and him, I kind of suspected anyway, and now you and Chuck? At once? Together? It's, I mean, we agreed, you can do what you want, you need to do what you want, but really? Chuck? Really Chuck?"
"We - I don't even know what - we just sort of -" Somewhere in there, Dan finds a breath. "Would you rather I was in love with someone? Or would you rather I was with someone I knew there is absolutely no chance I will ever be in love with?"
Serena folds her arms, which makes Dan think about her breasts. He reminds himself that he does not want sex, that sex is waiting in the next room and is the embodiment of evil.
Serena says, "I - I wish I had a moral high ground, but you - but you've always had that over me."
He almost tells her he misses her. To cover that up, he blurts out, "Yesterday I learned that I'll never be a coke fiend."
"He gave you - of course he gave you." She's laughing and hiding her mouth behind a hand. "And of course you hated it. Dan, you - you're so yourself." Dan is being hugged and kissed on the forehead, and he is working very hard to not have an erection.
"I'm -- I'm going down the hall." Dan points with his thumb.
"Please don't tell me." She looks crushed again when Dan smiles at her. He can tell she wanted to mean that hug, wanted to give her approval, but neither of them is there yet. Or will ever be, probably, but they have to move on. Like Dan is doing such a fantastic job of.
Down the hall in the right direction with the door open a crack, Chuck is lying on his bed (unless it's Eric's bed, which would be horrifying), naked, reading Paradise Lost. "Is this - is this another study date?" Dan says.
"It's a school night, isn't it?" Chuck does his word-twisting trick; it sounds like they've been assigned to read an epic poem justifying the ways of anal sex to man.
"I'm -- I'm not writing your paper for you."
"I wouldn't dream of asking." Chuck rolls over to give Dan a full frontal view. "I might be accused of eloquence. Besides, I like the book. Sympathy for the Devil. I could write a paper on that. Or at least purchase it with my own money."
Dan undresses matter-of-factly and dives onto the bed. They mess around for a while, but Dan's not getting anywhere. Chuck squeezes Dan's balls, enough pressure for discomfort but not enough to hurt. "Are you bored with me already?"
"No - I - I mean -- She's right down the hall. Serena."
"She might have gone out." Chuck is playing with Dan's balls like they're an intimidating toy from an executive's desk. "And she doesn't want to fuck you." Chuck sharpens each word to a point and sticks them in Dan's skin. Now, Dan is all nerves and not getting anywhere at all, but Chuck is doing just fine in Dan's hand and seems to settle for that. Dan's not sure what to do with his handful of cum, but while he's scanning the room for a box of Kleenex, Chuck licks his hand clean, keeps licking long after it's empty, sucking on Dan's fingers. While Dan is trying to make sense of why this is sexy and not gross, Chuck reaches for Dan's dick again and says, "Oh, too bad."
They lie around naked reviewing the past subjunctive for French, because Mme. Didier's pop quizzes are about as surprising as the existence of Thursdays. French grammar makes more sense in the nude, or maybe it's the foreign-film absurdity of hooking up repeatedly with his ex-girlfriend's stepbrother.
Chuck rolls a bottle of Stoli out from under the bed. Dan would have expected something fancier, but he guesses Chuck is saving the good stuff for someone he needs to impress. Chuck opens the bottle and raises it. "To the bitches who won't fuck us." They each take a few gulps. Vodka goes down easy now that Dan's had much harder stuff, but it's the first thing he ever got drunk on, the summer after seventh grade on a fishing dock in the Poconos with a bunch of kids he'd never see again. Like this, right out of the bottle, so he feels like he's losing his virginity all over again.
Dan runs his hands over some relatively neutral parts of Chuck's body, his arms and his neck, and says, "Should we, um, try again?"
Chuck kisses him relentlessly. Dan wonders if Chuck is this rough with girls, or if Chuck is making an effort to treat him differently. Chuck is obnoxious and smarmy when he's trying to seduce sweetly, but Dan knows he's being naive when he interprets this violence as more genuine.
"Did you want to try being on top again?" Chuck says.
Dan swallows vodka-flavored air. "Okay."
Chuck squints at him, recognizing the insult. Dan wants to rip the expression off Chuck's face with his tongue. Their teeth click together as they kiss feverishly. Dan bites Chuck's lip and runs his tongue over the bead of swollen skin he's trapped. Chuck fights his way free and rolls over. Dan gets the Astroglide out of his bag and picks off the plastic seal while Chuck stares at him, annoyed but it is not Dan's fault that Chuck left all his supplies in Serena's room. Dan finally gets the lube open and palms a condom so he doesn't forget, and all of that so he can finger Chuck for about fifteen seconds before Chuck says, "Just do it already. I don't care if it hurts." Dan does it already, and if it hurts, Chuck hides the pain.
Chuck is crouching on his knees, arms out in front of him like a cat stretching into a sunbeam, and dan is kind of riding him from behind. There's a cluster of acne in the middle of Chuck's back, and it's nice that Chuck has such a visible flaw, that he's another high school kid with bad skin, with a body he can't trust. And this is what bodies are for, for activities more primal than epic poetry or the past subjunctive, the things humanity invented to keep itself busy between fucking. Bodies, bodies are beautiful, generally, and Dan is thinking about them but thinking more with his dick, because that's really happy right now, and then he's not thinking at all and then coming too fast and too soon. He would apologize, but that would only irritate Chuck.
Dan gives Chuck a quick finishing blow job. Chuck needs so little encouragement that Dan's skills are irrelevant. "So I guess I'll... see you tomorrow?" Dan says. "Since it's a school night." These are two of the most preposterous sentences Dan has ever uttered, in a life full of excellent candidates, but Chuck doesn't protest. It is alarmingly generous of him.
Dan gets dressed and leaves without a kiss goodbye. He finds a subway station, and the most obscene thing about today is, he's home before 8 PM. His dad doesn't even ask him where he's been.
*
Dan is conscious and not chemically altered for the first time this week, and yet he is volunteering to pair up with Chuck for a mock debate in U.S. History. The penis is a powerful motivator. They go to a coffee shop after school to work on their presentation because they both have interviews at Yale this weekend. The Ivy League is utterly thwarting Dan's penis's plans.
Three lattes later, they are completely prepared for next Tuesday, and Dan needs to pee. Chuck follows him into the bathroom. "Stop it. I actually need to go."
"So go." Chuck leans back against the paper towel dispenser.
"You're going to watch me pee."
"I'm going to stare at your dick."
It is really difficult to pee with Chuck kissing his neck and feeling him up. Dan's dick is really into it, but his brain kind of wants to go home and fall asleep watching the Saturday Night Live primetime special. Dan tries to pull up his pants but Chuck is playing with his butt. "Hey. We're in a bathroom. In public. A public bathroom."
"And?" Chuck sticks a finger in Dan's ass. Dan's not sure he consented to that.
"And -- and I guess that turns you on?"
"It turns you on, too." Chuck moves his finger around, and Dan wants to answer him but he has to gasp first, and then more because Chuck has at least one more finger in him now and is thrusting harder. And talking like a James Bond villain, except Dan has no opportunity for escape. "If it didn't turn you on, you wouldn't have been with Serena. You wouldn't be with me. You love that people might be watching you. You love that someone might catch you and take your picture and put you on the internet, so you can pretend to be famous for five more minutes."
Dan wants to retort wittily, but Chuck is fucking him, so he closes his eyes and hopes he remembered to lock the door. Or maybe Chuck is right, and Dan wants the door to be unlocked, wants someone to walk in and spot them and have everyone at school know and fear them, envy their recklessness.
Chuck comes kind of fast, not horrible but the kind of thing he'd have to apologize for if Dan were a girl. Dan sees it as, Chuck sat through three lattes wanting him this much, not being able to wait. It's a compliment, but it's also a sign that Dan should run away as fast as he can. He's pretty sure he's too weak to survive Chuck Bass's devotion.
"Do you want me to jerk you off?" Chuck says.
"No, I -- I'm good." Dan turns on the sink, more to make noise than to wash his hands.
"So you're done with me, then? You're bored with me." Chuck trails his fingers up the side of Dan's head, making Dan cock his head sideways and expose skin to be bitten.
Dan pretends he doesn't feel it. He dries his hands and slings his bag over his shoulder. He's not sure what he's doing, but it seems to be working.
Chuck follows him too closely, stalking prey. "Let's go somewhere. Let's get dinner."
"Thanks, but I'm -- you know, my dad's cooking tonight, and I'm -- maybe some other time."
Chuck pouts; it seems genuine, but he'd hide his disappointment if it weren't calculated. "You really are bored with me."
Dan puts Chuck's hand on his dick. "A little bored."
"You're a horrible liar," Chuck says, stroking him, teasing.
"I totally had you going." Dan sticks his tongue in Chuck's mouth and succumbs to the men's room hand job he apparently deserves.
Chuck's driver takes them down to the Village, to this absurd restaurant where literally even the cocktails have bacon in them. They get drunk in the car and leave their school bags behind when they're dropped off. Chuck is reticent through the meal, studying Dan through his narrow, sinister eyes as if waiting for Dan to say something damning.
"I know where we're going," Chuck says as he pays the check. He practically drags Dan out to the sidewalk and through the maze of the West Village. Dan loses track of the streets; he's mostly sober, but his brain feels slippery, like he's high on bacon grease. Did Chuck drop something into his drink?
Chuck leads Dan into a nightclub. Tiny, bright lights in the dark room track like fireflies. Steady, deafening techno music thrums Dan's teeth. There are guys making out on the dance floor. Chuck negotiates with the bartender, smiling and squinting and offering cash, his usual arsenal. He returns with two drinks in highball glasses. "Stir it until the sugar cube dissolves," Chuck has to yell over the music, but it feels private as a whisper. Everything Chuck says makes Dan feel like that, but it's just another game.
The drink tastes deafeningly of licorice. The room goes green around the edges and begins to undulate with the rhythm of the music. Wads of light zoom and hover in the corners of his eyes. A guy in a sheer, tight t-shirt walks by, brushing Dan's butt with his hand. Dan considers following him, since his head-giving skills are nothing to be ashamed of, after all, but he'd probably end up abandoned in an alley with no shoes on, and he's already done that once this week. As the guy passes, Dan sees that he has wings growing out of his back, lacy and massive. Imaginary, he tells himself, but his eyes are stubborn. And he laughs, because the guy is wearing them strapped to his shoulders like a backpack, trailing feathers.
"Dance with me," Chuck commands. On the dance floor, they gyrate and kiss. The music is an intense, jubilant creature with its arms around them.
And its high is going to wear off, and they are going to crash, the two of them, bringing each other down. "I have to go." Dan kisses Chuck's hand. "I'm Cinderella." Chuck tries to stop him, but he's already switched on his subway-station radar, which works despite whatever is in his head. What is he on, anyway? It's kind of fantastic.
He takes a slow, green-tinged ride home, watching a troop of drunken aspiring models lurch and giggle whenever the train stops. One of them smiles at him, the crease of her lips to the edge of his vision, or is she another hallucination? Her cool poise reminds him of Serena.
Dan stumbles up to the loft, can't find his keys, and has to bang on the door until Jenny lets him in. "Where have you been? Are you high? Never mind. It's all on Gossip Girl anyway."
He tries to explain how little he cares what Gossip Girl says about him, but Jenny is parking him in front of the computer.
Hey, Upper East Siders, here's the long-awaited update on St. Jude's strangest bromance. Yes, I'm talking about Lonely Boy and C., who have been shockingly inseparable since Monday. Several dedicated correspondents insist there's nothing "bro" about this 'mance, but without some better verification, this one could go either way. Here's the evidence so far. Spotted this afternoon at Duane Reade: Lonely Boy making a very optimistic prophylactic purchase. Getting ready for another successful night as C.'s wingman, or providing more intimate services? The receipt our spy snagged reveals nothing more decisive than a preference for Trojans and Astroglide. Another little birdie claims to have seen C. and Lonely Boy at Pacha, very shirtless and very affectionate. Sorry, Birdie, no photo means no scoop. And no answers on the most interesting question in all of this: who's corrupting who? There are widespread reports that C. has been showing up to class on time, homework in hand. Is C. introducing Lonely Boy to the dark side, or is Lonely Boy showing C. the path to the honor roll? Keep those tips coming!
XOXO,
Gossip Girl
Jenny looks at Dan expectantly. He says, "It's all true. You read it on Gossip Girl, right?" He goes to his room and slams the door, not caring who he wakes.
*
Chuck catches Dan on the school steps the next morning, holding Dan's backpack out in front of him like it smells funny. "Your glass slipper," Chuck says, attracting freshman paparazzi. Dan tries to brush by him wordlessly, but Chuck whispers, "Front pocket."
Dan reads the note during homeroom. How hilarious was that Gossip Girl item? Chuck wouldn't be caught dead at Pacha. And as if it were an afterthought, lunch period, second-floor janitor's closet, Chuck has a key, knock exactly seven times. Dan should be getting hard just thinking about it, but instead he has "Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me" stuck in his head, and also probably a math quiz he has not studied for, and look, his apartment key, in his backpack where he left it.
Dan goes to the second floor janitor's closet without butterflies in his stomach, because his belly is too howlingly empty to register fear. Chuck pulls him in by his tie and shoves him against the wall, kissing him. "Wait," Dan says. Chuck ignores him, or perhaps he thinks he's obeying by going for Dan's belt. "No. Stop it. I'm done with this. I'm out."
Chuck steps back and blinks at him, mouth puckered in acid confusion. "I thought you said you weren't bored with me yet."
"I wasn't. But I... I wanted to understand you, so I... and now I do, and you're - you're not that interesting, Chuck."
"Well, if that's how you feel." Chuck swings the door open with a wide gesture and a bruised smirk that lets Dan know Chuck will retaliate in a thousand small but humiliating ways. But Dan would rather suffer humiliation than fuck Chuck out of fear. Dan's so used to embarrassment he hardly feels it anymore, but fear would be new.
Dan treads water through the afternoon. He's managed an A- on his chem test despite the cocaine hangover and an unprecedented 100% on his French quiz. It's funny to think that dumping Chuck will hurt his GPA. He's definitely fucked for the history debate next week: one small humiliation, coming up.
On the subway home, he feels like he's escaping. He snags a seat and sits back to watch the passengers come and go. There's a girl standing at the far end of the car, pretty in a strange way, Scheherazade eyes and a nose too big for her face. She's wearing a tricked-out prep school uniform: pink-and-black candy-striped tights, silver lace-up boots, pink vinyl raincoat, pink pillbox hat with a veil over one eye. Quirky, the kind of girl he would have been attracted to before St. Jude's, before Serena.
He takes out his notebook and writes about her, a word sketch so he won't forget her. So he doesn't look like he's stalking her, he writes about the other people on the train, too. A porcine man reading a Russian newspaper, taking up three seats. An elderly Asian woman with a gigantic pot of yellow chrysanthemums in her lap. Three Dominican girls crowded around a cell phone, shrieking about a text message.
At the bottom of the page, he writes his phone number and first name. How many times has he done this when he's seen a cute girl on the subway and not followed through? Somewhere in the low dozens.
The girl in the pink hat gets off at his stop. In a moment of Bassian boldness, he says, "Hey, I think you dropped this," and slips her the phone number. She unfolds it, smiles, and turns the other way down Lorimer Street. He's sure he'll never see her again.
He goes home, makes himself a snack, eats until he's full of butterflies. His dad comes home early. "Surprised to see you here."
"I thought I'd take the night off," Dan says. "What do you say to pizza and Netflix? Unless you - you have a date or something."
"I don't know. Do you deserve pizza and Netflix?"
Dan pulls two A's out of his backpack. The plus on one will cancel out the minus on the other. Dan waits for the lecture about blowing off his curfew to have gay sex, but his dad just gets out the pizza menu, whistling his way to the phone and not asking what toppings Dan wants. Pineapple and onion might be his punishment. Dan's dad is creative.
There is one pepperoni pie and one artichoke, and they watch a Will Ferrell movie and let themselves laugh at it. Dan is home with his dad on a Friday night, and it's the best night he's had all week. That might make him a loser, but he'd rather be that. When Lonely Boy lives up to his name, Gossip Girl doesn't give a shit.
It looks like the punishment is that there will be no lecture, no acknowledgement, no opportunity to confide. Dan has behaved so far beyond his father's understanding that there's no way of correcting it. After the movie, Dan goes to his room to pour his heart out to the page, since that will listen. Surely he has enough now for a juicy Charlie Trout adventure. But he doesn't know where to start; he's got too much on the guy. And despite Chuck's armor of hair products and bow ties, Dan suspects he's done enough damage to Chuck's ego, maybe even to his heart.
He writes about the girl from the subway, instead, to clear his mind. She becomes the model from last night, too, and the girl with the streamer barrettes who he saw last week reading Fight Club on the N train, and every subway girl before them, forever. She wants to leave the city behind and work on an organic dairy farm, but she can't get out. She buys a plane ticket, but there's a bomb threat and La Guardia shuts down. She tries to take the Chinatown bus but gets mugged at the stop. She rents a car and thinks this time she's made it, but a truck jackknifes on the George Washington Bridge. It turns out to be a livestock truck, and she lures a calf that has wandered into the road. When the traffic clears, she turns around with the calf in her back seat to raise it secretly in Tompkins Square Park.
It's unlike anything he's written, bizarre and absurd. And totally made up. Maybe it's a vestige of last night's green hallucinations. Regardless, he's going to send it to The New Yorker; he's going to send it to Yale. He got a story out of this week that he couldn't have written before.