A/N: This is my first time writing Dan, and my almost first time writing a GG fic. Constructive criticism welcome. Also, if anyone wants to beta for me in the future, let me know.
I doubt I'll have this finished by the time S5 starts, so this will be AU in a few weeks. I hope people enjoy it anyway.
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There was almost no warning.
Dan closed Skype, still smiling from Blair's unabashed gushing. He had finally caved on watching an Audrey film, and though he had a list of critiques primed for the occasion, they had gone unmentioned. He was unused to seeing Blair laud anything with that much enthusiasm. It was refreshing. And more than a little adorable.
Bemusement shook the curls across his forehead as he absently grabbed the package he'd tossed under the table almost four hours earlier.
Besides, Blair had needed the victory.
She seemed withdrawn lately. Castles, it seemed, got more than lonely. But their movie dates—discussions, he corrected himself—usually managed to bolster her spirits.
It was a selfish way to quell his increasing worry, he mused as he tore open the box. He hated to see her so subdued—royal smile affixed on painted lips—but Dan felt an unnerving sense of satisfaction in knowing he could make that smile melt into its best self, enigmatic and full of promise. Even the memory of it was enough to steal his attention from the book that slid from the tilted box into his waiting hands.
He glanced down at the cover, furrowed his brows. He hadn't ordered any books lately, and his correspondence with Blair hadn't progressed to anything this tangible. With a shrug Dan peeled away the Advanced Copysticker and felt his stomach lurch. He blinked, looked again, but the image didn't change.
Inside; Anonymous
What the hell?
Dread building, Dan raised the front cover. There, under the heading Acknowledgments, was a single typed line:
Sometimes, even the best of us needs a push from a friend. –V
As clearly as he had felt their friendship end when she betrayed Blair—him, their moment—to Serena, he now felt the bitterness tenfold.
Dan dropped the book to the table, fighting the urge to throw something. The book, the box, Vanessa's striped coffee mug that was collecting dust on top of the fridge.
All the pirogues and documentaries in the world could never undo this. This moment, this selfish attempt to mend fences or vanguard glory, was the nail in their coffin. He and Vanessa would never come back from this.
He hadn't expected them to, really, but the finality of his decision left him aimless.
He wanted to see Blair, couldn't see Blair. Rationally, he knew anyone would sympathize the loss of Vanessa Abrams better than Blair.
Still, he wished he could call her. He wished he were that brave.
So Dan used the only option he really had left. He crossed the bridge, left the cab's meter running, and gave Vanya the world's only copy of Inside, Eric's name scrawled across the cover.
They were the only two he knew he could trust.
He was back in Brooklyn before he could change his mind.
zzzzz
Eric called the next day, his well-intentioned, "It's good, but it's . . . not good," did nothing for Dan's nerves.
Dan asked how and why and is that even legal?
Eric responded with audible shrugs and consolatory remarks.
"You could try talking to the family lawyer," he offered when all else failed. "You probably can't stop publication at this point, but you might get some sort of reparation."
"Thanks anyway," Dan told him.
"Sorry. This isn't really my area of expertise."
Dan finished the thought: It's Blair's.
zzzzz
He took to solitude. The book's release weighed on him, his own inescapable disaster looming on the horizon. His bi-weekly dates with Blair became the bright spot in his self-darkened world. Keeping him sane and grounding him, funneling patches of sunlight into his hazy reality.
New York was heavy. He took Eric's calls but refused Eric's visits. The one time Lily guilted him into family brunch, he had been so on edge his father had given up asking about him. He was fervently grateful that Nate and Serena had defected to sunnier cities. The grey skyscrapers were his isolation, to wander as he wished.
Vanessa had not simply invaded his privacy and stolen his deepest secrets; she had splashed them before a world full of strangers. People who would praise and critique while Dan felt the repercussions everywhere he went.
There was nothing to do but wait.
Wait for his family to feel the shock, for his friends to take offense, for everyone he'd ever met to come after him with rusty screwdrivers. Or Swarvaski-tipped cake servers.
But mostly, he waited for Blair to call.
He had a speech prepared from the moment the book hit the stands. It was full of "I am so sorry"s and "it just happened"s, and far too many adjectives.
After three hours of staring at a silent phone, he realized that groveling before Blair Waldorf would lead nowhere good. In the oppressive gloom of his study, he sat down by his computer and penned a second speech. Much more reasonable, much more realistic, in which he blamed everything on poetic license.
And he waited for the chance to use it.
She missed All That Heaven Allowswith no explanation. Dan had been looking forward to her thoughts on the friendship-turned-love affair. Sometimes it seemed like her insights let him know his own mind. Let him see clearly why they agreed, and when he thought she was full of it.
Idly, he wondered if the socially divided romance hit too close to home. He yearned, dreaded, drove himself crazy considering the answer before calling himself an idiot and tossing the DVD into the trash.
He hadn't really wanted to watch it anyway.
zzzzz
Serena called him two days after P-Day, full of feigned offense.
"Dan! I can't believe you didn't tell me you wrote a book! Didn't you think I would figure it out?" She laughed, "I mean, you weren't exactly subtle. What, with 'Sabrina' the," she paused, worked the giggles from her throat, and spoke with affected solemnity, "'whirlwind blonde, raining freedom on those of us chained by convention.'"
Dan sighed. "Serena, I'm sorry, I just-"
"Don't worry about it," Serena's voice was warm. "I know how you writers like your secrets. I've been working with enough screen writers lately, I could probably write my own-Oh!" She cut herself off, "I should totally give this to my director! Dan, you wouldn't believehow many connections I've made down here. I bet we could even get a deal for a movie adaptation!"
"By all that is holy, no."
His objection was vehement, and vehemently ignored. He could practically feel Serena's good-natured eye roll.
"Uh-huh. Play it off, Mr. Big-Time-Published-Author. I'm calling it now, this is going to be epic."
"Serena," he started, but she cut him off with a rushed, "Nuh-uh, don't want to hear it! Got to go finish the book, call you when I'm done!"
Dan found himself cursing the dial tone.
zzzzz
Serena sent regular updates.
page 52-Dan, if u'd said that when we were dating, we wouldn't have broken up. ;) u r such a sweetie!
p69-Georgina is a CRAZY bitch.
p103-omg, did not know that about Nate. LOL.
He amused himself tracing Serena's texts, wondering what Blair might have said instead.
P124-my mom is SCARY. :)
(Page 124 is entertaining and insightful. You might have improved it by staying tastefully silent on the subject of Lily and her children.)
p147-deep stuff. wish I could see life like you do.
(Your imagery fell a little flat on page 147. I did like your reinvention of Shakespeare's "all the world's a stage…" with the UES as players.)
p216-…really, Dan?
(Page 216: Really, Humphrey?)
Then the updates stopped, and he knew Serena wouldn't be calling about movie deals.
He wished Blair would call to critique.
It was beginning to feel depressingly familiar. A single moment that redefined Dan's thinking would be the same moment that solidified Blair's preconceptions. Every day, he half-expected the call: "it just made me realize how much I want to be with Louis."
He wasn't sure how he would take it.
Bow out gracefully? If he could. Get over her? Unlikely.
Two weeks passed. Two weeks of silence and skipped movie analyses. Two weeks of staring at the wall, convincing himself not to call her. Two weeks of frustration as he hung up on her voicemail.
Finally over his self-flagellation, Dan focused his efforts on worry. He knew if anything were wrong, every newspaper in the country would be running the story.
Still, it didn't stop his imagination.
Future Princess Flies into Rage Over Bestselleraccompanied the image of Blair flinging his book through a timeless stained glass window.
Bride-To-Be Sequestered in the Castlehad her lying stricken on an armchair, curtains drawn.
Royal Fiancée Dies in Tragic Biking Accident. It was getting a little ridiculous.
That didn't stop him from scanning the papers.
zzzzz
News of her broken engagement flashed across newspapers and tabloids, flushed Dan's veins with vicarious regret and cruel hope.
Gossip Girl found her three weeks later, fresh faced and toting novels around the French countryside. Dan spent five hours wondering how she was, if it was it possible to miss her more than he already did, whether his words had contributed to the end of her relationship.
Had she even bothered to read his book? The book she must know was his, in the way that she knew everything except the truth. The depths of his decidedly not platonic feelings for her. The same unchaste thoughts that were lying open on coffee tables in every house but his own.
Eric took pity on him and gave him Harold's address.
Dan carefully considered his options.
For two days he vacillated between burning the address and showing up unannounced. Drunk on cheap beer, he composed a florid love letter, which hit the shredder the moment he sobered. After a week of driving himself insane, Dan signed a copy of Inside, added a brief, love to hear your commentary, and dropped the plain brown package into a mailbox down the street.
He marked the calendar and waited for a reply.
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The chapter title is from an E.E. Cummings poem, which will provide the titles for the duration of the fic. I'll post the whole exerpt of the poem with the last part.