Outtakes Chapter 1, a gossip girl fanfic

Summary: This is a story about three characters: Blair Waldorf, Dan Humphrey & The Silver Screen.

Warning: Some of this is kind of bleak

A/N: So I could have set this story after Season 6. But then I thought about it and, due to what those in legal circles call 'major-ass sucking', I concluded S6 can only be ignored. So I'm going to say this begins some years after Season 5. I don't think something as stupid as 5x24 happened, but the important thing is that Dan & Blair's relationship somehow fell apart, and that they're now each back in their messed-up teenage relationships. Let's see what we can do about that...

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Outtakes - Chapter One

2013

Dan doesn't watch movies any more.

Actually, that's not true. Over Christmas he watched dozens. Dozens of cheap, predictable, genuinely terrible holiday movies. One night he'd discovered a cable channel dedicated to them, playing them every day, all month. It was called NonStopYule and it displayed a jolly, gyrating cartoon snowman in the top right hand corner of the screen at all times. Fairly quickly they exhausted their repertoire and started repeating ones he'd already seen. So he watched them again.

Serena - when she'd find him slumped once again in front of the TV, fingers auto-shovelling brazil nuts into his blank face - saw it as getting into the holiday spirit and smiled indulgently. It wasn't that Serena was stupid. It was just that she knew what she wanted: light and hope and goodness. And dammit she was going to get them. And so, she simply wasn't willing to see a dark spiral for what it was.

As for him, watching these movies was guaranteed not to invoke any thoughts. Or any feelings. Or any anything. Because the guy and the girl were going to end up together, like they were supposed to all along. Because there would be bumps along the way, but at the eleventh hour everything would be fixed (more often than not by a meddling geriatric). Because there would be smiling and kissing and snowflakes and all that stuff that is supposed to happen. And there was no point hoping for anything different. Truly it was blissful - not having to think or feel.

In January NonStopYule does in fact stop, and Dan - vaguely bitter that he never got to say goodbye to his buddy the gyrating snowman - switches off the TV. If he could switch himself back on at the same time, he would; but he doesn't know how.

And now, Dan really doesn't watch movies any more.

2005

The first time it happened, they never even knew about it.

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A rainy Sunday, windows rattling timidly against the storm. Despite Dorota's disapproving looks, Blair had made a decision and that decision was that she wasn't going to get out of bed today. She was still under the covers, propped up on both elbows, and meticulously messing with her pillows by pulling out feathers one by one, wherever she felt their sharp points press against her fingertips. It was something she used to do when she was a child and things didn't go her way.

She was still simmering from last night, and in particular the memory of Nate running around laughing his gorgeous, wasted little head off with everyone but her, and in her own goddamn house too. And Serena was just as bad, swanning around like a Barbie Jesus, healing lame peasants with only the sound of her golden laugh. Oh and there was also the fact that Blair had drunk too much, which she never did, because although she liked the feeling of being tipsy and smiley and silly, she hated when it went too far and everything would start to slip.

So yes, her head was heavy and her fingers were angry and she was not getting out of bed.

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Dan was woken by plump raindrops splashing his face. He stumbled out of bed to shut the window, wiping the back of his hand across his damp cheek. He hadn't been able to sleep for hours, partly because he was still worked up from his night out; and he'd opened the window in the hope that the familiar sounds of the delivery trucks rolling by might soothe him to sleep. And he was right.

The other reason he hadn't been able to sleep was the story he'd started writing. A story about the night out. The first page had been so easy, it was like he was possessed. And then... brick wall. He plucked the paper from where it lay beside his pillow, and as he scanned it he felt the same simultaneous excitement and discomfort that he he had felt last night when it had been driving him crazy. Where could this story possibly go? How could it end?

He tilted his head back, trying to clear it. And that was when he noticed how very quiet it was. Too quiet. Where was everyone?

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Having eventually tired of being shooed away, Dorota disregarded Blair's grunts and brought in mystery soup and orange juice, because she knew a hangover when she saw one - and how to cure it. Stepping around the feathers littering the rug, she deposited the tray next to the stiff figure on the bed.

Though her eyes were narrowed and her bottom lip jutting out, Blair's brief nod contained what Dorota recognized as her code for "thank you". As she nodded back "You're welcome" and turned to leave, she heard Blair whine a single sound - "teeveeeee?" - and she didn't have to look back to know how large her doe eyes would now have grown, how daintily her eyelashes would be fluttering, imploring.

This was how it always went. A permanent television set would ruin the perfect ambience of Blair's bedroom, would be an anachronism amongst the pastel hues and vintage curves. But ever since forever, Dorota had grown accustomed to carrying in the small set from the guest room next door, whenever Blair felt this particular inclination.

Once she had fetched the TV and installed it on the bench at the foot of the bed, she placed the remote control carefully into the palm of Blair's hand, as if providing an infant with her bottle of milk. And right on cue, there they were: the quivering eyelashes of gratitude.

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Cautiously, Dan padded towards the kitchen, and it was there that he found the note:

Hope you had fun, party animal. Gone with Dad and Jenny to buy her birthday present.
Mom xx

Triumph swelled. He was free. Free to walk around in his boxers. Free to make coffee the way he liked it (the grown-up way, not that feeble swill he usually put up with because some members of the family had more delicate tastebuds). Free to bounce onto his parent's bed like old times (the not-so-grown-up way). To switch on the TV and be presented with the opening credits of a bona fide classic movie. And to feel a strange and rare tingling of contentment.

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At the sound of the door finally closing, Blair wriggled deeper under the covers. Hearing the familiar strains of "Over the Rainbow", she rolled her eyes and stabbed at the remote again. But as she flipped on and on, past live audiences booing at adulterers, past 'classic' sitcoms that were about as classic as treading in gum, she recalled that she did admire those ruby slippers. And the stylish hats worn by the guards. And that strange and intense friendship between a girl and a scarecrow. So when she found herself back at that particular channel, and observed the tornado brewing, she figured she could deign to put up with it for a little while. And if within a few minutes her lip was no longer jutting out, it was mostly because it's hard to eat soup while pouting. Mostly.

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He doesn't even like musicals, as a rule. But this one had always been the exception. And on this particular day, angsty teen poet that Dan was, he couldn't help but perceive the film as being all about himself. About how before yesterday his life had been in black and white and then, when he walked into that party, when he saw that girl, everything was suddenly in color. And he knew he wasn't in Kansas any more.

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And self-absorbed princess that she was, Blair too was viewing this as the story of her life. Perfect, shiny, annoying Glinda, floating around in her magic bubble, with lesser beings bowing down to her every word? Obviously Serena. (Munchkins? Minions? Same difference.) If only the house had fallen on her.

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And so, alone and in ignorance, Dan and Blair enjoyed their first movie together.

2013

Blair is an extremely busy woman.

Blair doesn't have time to see friends.

Blair doesn't have time to eat lunch.

And Blair doesn't have time to wade through this stupidly long Netflix queue. Really, she can't imagine what she'd been thinking. Constantly adding and adding and adding to the list, not to mention that period of time when she'd allowed a certain someone access to her account. A certain pretentious someone, prone to slipping unspeakably pretentious films into the queue.

She is too busy for this. So tonight, she's going to delete them all. All three-hundred-and- twenty-seven titles. A pedant would see this as warped logic at its very finest, since it'd be less time-consuming to just close the account, or at least stop logging in. But that would be passive and Blair is not passive. She is a woman of action, with a full and - did she mention? - extremely busy life.

1. On The Waterfront DELETE
2. Bicycle Thieves DELETE
3. Harold & Maude DELETE
4. Heaven Can -

BEEP BEEP. Her fingers freeze before reaching to retrieve her phone. It's from Chuck. He'll be there soon, he's just having one more drink with the investors.

76. Leon DELETE
77. Solaris DELETE

She catches sight of her own reflection and raises her head to examine herself. Her neck is chunky. It's lucky she never has time to eat lunch, or it'd be even chunkier.

145. Rebecca DELETE
146. Dude, Where's My Car?
Oh! Mr. Pretentious was in a goofy mood the day he added that one. How very charming. DELETE.
147. -

BEEP BEEP. He's calling. He's sorry he's late. She pretends that she'd even noticed. She tells him not to worry, she's fine, and she hangs up and goes back to her essential task.

212. The African Queen DELETE
213. All About Eve DELETE

But now she's distracted, distracted by the guilty feeling that she should have noticed he was late. Should have thought about him at all this evening, but she hasn't.

DELETE DELETE DELETE

And now, soundless tears are falling down her cheeks and she can't stop them. And she's guilty about everything and she doesn't know how to mend any of it because it's all out of her control but there is one thing she can control and it's easy because all she has to do is skip dinner.

DELETE DELETE DELETE

And she's so distracted that when she gets to the very bottom of the queue, she doesn't even see what's in front of her. Doesn't see the final three out-of-place titles. Doesn't see the mini love letter left there approximately eight months earlier, left there for her to find by a pretentious, head-over-heels someone:

325. I Confess
326. I Wanna Hold Your Hand
327. Like Crazy

DELETE DELETE DELETE