He knows how she likes her coffee.
He wants to tell her this as she stands in front of him, wringing her hands, watching his face, waiting for a response to the words she had just let fall between them. It's such a strange thing to think at that particular moment. Blair has just told him that she still has feelings. For Chuck. Chuck Bass. That she hasn't been able to let him go. Instead of anger and resentment and sadness crashing together Dan just looks at her and thinks about coffee.
He thinks about all the chipped white porcelain mugs he has slid across the counter of the loft over the last few months and how she would reach out and grab them, glancing up from the New York Times on her iPad, muttering a quick thank you before she took a sip.
He knows how she likes her coffee.
She likes it brewed strong, lots of half and half so it's smooth and silky on her tongue. He makes it every morning, slipping out of bed as she sleeps, her breathing softly echoing through the room, her hair spread out across the pillow, and he usually hesitates, wanting to burrow back under the covers, nestle back against her warm, sleeping body, let the morning slip by.
It's always fresh-ground, the grinds scattering on the counter as he taps them into the coffee maker. He has scoured the city to find the right blend, the right combination of smooth yet bold. Something unique. Like Blair.
She apologizes and he sees tears in her eyes, threatening to spill over the edges, and she explains how she didn't mean for it to happen, that she didn't know how to leave Chuck behind, how to not care anymore. She begs him to not hate her. Dan wants to call her a liar but Blair isn't lying. There is something that keeps her in Chuck's orbit, something she hasn't managed to pull free from.
Dan finds himself glancing over at the empty mugs on the counter, the edges stained brown. Had it just been this morning they had sat across from each other, eating croissants, Dan telling her about a dream he'd had the night before. Had it just been last night that he had ghosted kisses over her skin, that she'd gasped out his name.
Dan thought he could be the end of her story, that if he just loved her, knew her inside and out, that he would be enough and whatever she had felt for Chuck would evaporate, the dream of a dream, a fragment of her history.
He feels wound up, tight, nails digging into his palms even though he hadn't realized they were even balled into fists to start with, and he wants to scream, to sink to the floor and let his anguish erupt. Instead his jaw clenches and unclenches, holding it all inside. He still says nothing. She had changed their story in a matter of seconds and somehow he'd become a place marker in the story of blairandchuckchuckandblair when he thought that maybe he and Blair were actually writing something entirely new.
He knows how she likes her coffee.
Blair liked sweetness, licking her fingers after eating Godiva chocolates, nibbling pastries as they waited in line for an early afternoon movie, so every morning he would spoon amber sugar crystals into her cup, enjoying the clanking of the spoon against the side of the mug as he stirred. The coffee was never too hot, never too cold, never too sweet, never not sweet enough. It was a labor of love, one of the million small efforts on his part that combined into what Dan knew was him giving her his heart.
She was giving it back now, wrapped in a ugly patina of Chuck Bass, split open, dissected, examined, and chipped into small pieces. He wanted to tell her to keep it. It was a gift. It belonged to her. Even this couldn't stop him from loving her.
Idiot.
Loving Chuck would not make her happy. It never had. Chuck might buy her expensive gifts, he might even know about the spot behind her ear that makes Blair suck in her breath, makes her eyes flutter shut, but Chuck didn't care about the details.
He didn't know her, he just wanted her.
Chuck would never glance over to see her wiping tears away during sad parts of movies, never know that she chews on a finger when she gets to the good part of a novel. He wouldn't know that her favorite time of day is twilight, when the sun is slipping away but the night hasn't fully taken over, and the air is filled with the scents of flowers, and the streets are echoing with the sounds of children playing until the last possible moments before they're called inside for the evening, the stars just starting to twinkle in the almost midnight blue velvet sky. Dan and Blair would sit curled under a blanket in an old chaise lounge on the roof of his building, watching the sun finally slip below the horizon, silent, breathing in and out together, and he would whisper promises in her ear.
Chuck would never know that she licked her lips when she was thinking about sex or that if she was looking at your mouth while you were talking, she wanted to kiss you.
Chuck would never know how she likes her coffee.
Blair looks small standing in front of him, watching his face, waiting for him to say something, willing him to get angry, to hurt her in a way no worse than she had already hurt herself. Dan knows this about her. She wants him to hurt her because she thinks she deserves at least that kind of pain, the kind that lashes out and refuses to let go. She thinks that maybe it will make her feel better, that maybe if she has enough pain she will finally be able to find a way to release herself.
He refuses to drop her gaze.
Dan thinks he must truly have gone insane because all of his nightmares are coming true, and he should be angry, should tell her that there is no forgiveness, and all he wants to do is kiss her.
Her eyes go to his mouth.
Fools in love.
So he does. Instead of spewing out a litany of meaningless words into the silence, words that would end up cluttering the space between them, complicating things, he steps toward her.
There is only one way he knows to tell her how he feels.
One step. Two steps. Dan is reminded of a different kiss, Blair in red and her fingers splayed on the fabric of his jacket and the way she'd tasted sweet and then she'd sighed against him and kissed him back and Dan knew this was all he'd ever needed.
One step. Two steps.
Do you love him? Does he make you coffee and put love notes in your bag? Does he watch you sleep and memorize the curve of your neck, the way your lashes lie dark against your skin. Does he write about you?
His lips touch to hers softly, hesitantly.
Do you love him? Or does he tie you to him with the strands of your own darkness, bind you with games, swallow you up into him until you don't know yourself anymore? Is that love?
Blair sighs.
Do you love him? Does he kiss you like I kiss you, until you can't find a way to take another breath, to think another thought?
Dan opens his mouth and deepens the kiss and consumes her, and his hands skim up her back to tangle in her hair, and he tells her everything that he can't find the words to say.
Can you love me more?
He knows her. He knows her brand of her favorite perfume, and that she plays with her hair when she's deep in thought, and that she feels like she'll never be good enough for her mother. He knows that sometimes in the middle of the night when she thinks he's asleep she cries, although he's not entirely sure why.
He knows how she likes her coffee.
- the end -